On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:45:18 GMT Peter Claughton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Given the principal use for lead, in construction work, it is
> unlikely that it was mined for its own sake before the use of stone in the
> large buildings became commonplace - lead was initially available as a
> bi-product of silver refining.
Peter,
I'm not sure that I would agree with this statement. I've
heard it said about the Roman period, too (although where I heard that
escapes me for the moment). The Romans were using a lot of lead for
plumbing and the like (lining baths etc.) as well as other, more
bizarre pruposes (like medicines, cosmetics and weights), and were
taking it out of most lead producing areas of England (not all of which
were silver producing). The sheer scale of the Roman lead industry was
incredible: Hong et al (Science, vol 265, 1994,pp1841-1843) estimated
that the Roman lead industry was producing as much lead as the
Industrial Revolution lead industry (I forget the exact amounts. They
estimated from the amount of lead contamination in Greenland ice cores.
It could be that Roman lead smelters were very inefficient, but even
with a 50% loss as fumes, there was a lot of lead production). I don't
accept that it was all as a by product. Similarly in the Medieval
period, certainly there is a big decrease in the demand for lead, and a
big decrease in the amount of lead smelted, but there wasn't a decrease
in the demand for silver...
Ken
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Ken Hamilton
c/o Department of Archaeological Sciences
University of Bradford
Richmond Road
Bradford BD7 1DP
West Yorkshire UK
(01274) 235906
http://www.student.brad.ac.uk/kchamil1/
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