My MA dissertation was on Argentiferous Lead Mines in Roman Wales and I would suggest that you are asking the wrong question from a roman / ancient mining point of view because in modern times we tend to think of mines from the point of view of one metal at a time. The real question was whether there was a market for and could you make money if you started a mine or redeveloped a mine at a certain place or time from all the metals that came out of those mines. There was a huge market for lead especially at building boom times in Chester and Wroxeter. (you can have a city without silver, but not without lead.) The mines were very profitable, and judging by the proximity of military forts and good roads, protected and supported by the state. Lead was used widely and intensively, not only in construction but also in food and wine production, cosmetics, paint, medicine, glass, weapons, coffins, memorials, etc. Nowadays we undervalue it. The vast majority of lead mining was sub-contracted and subject to established Roman mining law. If the contractor found gold or silver he knew that they were imperial metals and subject to claim by the state. He could still make money from the venture because of the lead mined and a percentage from the other metals.A personal note, when I moved on for my PhD (still in progress), I chose to move sideways to the roman USE of lead, material culture... there's a lot of it, but because people keep reusing it, there is misleadingly little in the archaeological record.yours Steve Gray
On Wednesday, 7 September 2016, 0:08, mining-history automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
There are 2 messages totaling 67 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Shropshire lead ore silver content (2)
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Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:10:22 +0000
From: Andy Cuckson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Shropshire lead ore silver content
I think it is well known that in the modern era, the silver content in Shropshire ores was generally low - mostly too low for economic extraction.
Does anyone know of any evidence, and especially metallurgical analyses, which might establish that Shropshire ores were sufficiently rich in ancient times (Roman, for example) to justify silver extraction?
Regards,
Andy Cuckson
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Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 16:57:04 +0100
From: Tim Young <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Shropshire lead ore silver content
Dear Andy
I haven't worked on the Shropshire lead ores, so my answer is somewhat oblique. I have
been struck by the silver content of the some of the ores from Llanymynech (presumably)
being smelted for copper on the middle Iron Age site at Four Crosses. The silver is
associated with the iron oxide, rather than the copper minerals. Analysis of late Bonze Age
copper ingots from Cornwall (tentatively provenanced to the Welsh borders on the basis of
trace elements and lead isotopes) also shows a modest, but not insignificant, silver content.
Cheers
Tim
On 6 Sep 2016 at 13:10, Andy Cuckson wrote:
> I think it is well known that in the modern era, the silver content in Shropshire ores was generally low - mostly too low for economic extraction.
> Does anyone know of any evidence, and especially metallurgical analyses, which might establish that Shropshire ores were sufficiently rich in ancient times (Roman, for example) to justify silver extraction?
> Regards,
> Andy Cuckson
>
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>
> leave mining-history
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Dr Tim Young MA PhD FSA FGS
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End of mining-history Digest - 24 Aug 2016 to 6 Sep 2016 (#2016-47)
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