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New Study Of Lead Ingots Sheds Light On The Roman Way Of Life

Lead_ingots

Wikimedia Commons/Public/Rodw, Public domain

Jeff Charles Contributor
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Researchers have gleaned more information from three ancient lead ingots discovered in Cordoba, Spain, that sheds light on the economic activities of the Roman Empire.

The discovery could offer new insights into the Roman Empire’s trade in a metal some have theorized could have played a role in the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

Construction workers unearthed the ingots, which date back to the Roman period in Spain, while building Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline in the 1990s, according to a study published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Archaeologists believe Cordoba was a major hub for economic activity in the days of the Roman Empire, according to the study. The lead ingots the researchers analyzed each weigh or weighed between 23.5 kg and 32.5 kg and bear the stamp “SS.”

The researchers concluded based on the stamps that they were produced by the societas Sisaponensis, an ancient mining company named for the city of Sisapo, located in Baetica. This ancient city has been linked to Hispano-Roman ruins discovered in La Bienvenida. The region is famous for its mines.

“This information demonstrates that in antiquity the northern regions of Cordoba boasted major metallurgical networks of great commercial and economic importance in the Mediterranean,” according to Antonio Monterroso Checa, who co-authored the study, told The Independent. (RELATED: Ancient Roman Ruins Uncovered Atop Even Bigger Historical Secret)

Some researchers have theorized that the Roman Empire’s widespread use of lead could have contributed to its downfall, an idea that has faced serious criticism, according to Bill Thayer’s website. The debate was reignited in a New England Journal of Medicine article published in 1983 by the geochemist Jerome Nriagu. Classicist and pharmacist John Scarborough responded in 1984 in “The Myth of Lead Poisoning Among the Romans: An Essay Review,” arguing that Nriagu’s work was flawed and that the Romans were aware of the danger lead posed, according to The Washington Post.

“Scarborough knows nothing, absolutely nothing, about lead poisoning. Absolutely zero,” Nriagu told the outlet in 2016.

The metal was a common material in Roman society, used in products such as water pipes to cooking vessels, Thayer wrote. When Romans would use cooking vessels to sweeten or preserve wine, they preferred to use vessels produced with lead to boil the product, according to multiple accounts from the period cited by the university.

However, people alive in the Roman period understood lead to be dangerous but apparently did not link the issue to their use of the cooking vessels, Thayer noted, citing accounts. What degree, if any, lead may have played in producing cognitive impairment in the Romans is contested.

Editor’s Note: Bill Thayer/Penelope’s website is hosted by the University of Chicago’s server. Attributions have been changed to distinguish it from the university.