Pretia Victoriae or Just an Occasional Bonus? Analysis of Iron Age Lead Artefacts from the Somerset Lake Villages

Ponting, MJ ORCID: 0000-0003-0343-6224 (2018) Pretia Victoriae or Just an Occasional Bonus? Analysis of Iron Age Lead Artefacts from the Somerset Lake Villages. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 37 (2). pp. 185-199.

Text Iron Age lead OJA Feb 17 revision.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (60kB)

Abstract

This paper looks at the evidence for the extraction of silver from lead ores in Iron Age and Roman Britain. Analysis shows that many of the lead objects from the Somerset Lake Villages were made from Mendip lead, but their chemical composition suggests that they were not produced from lead that had been de‐silvered, but from smelted galena with variable silver content. Furthermore, analysis of a Roman lead pig, made from Charterhouse lead ores, shows that it was made of chemically identical lead. Does this mean that silver was not extracted from British lead in the Iron Age and Roman periods? The evidence discussed and the results of the analyses suggest that silver was not always extracted from lead even when it was economical to do so. This was a cultural choice and not a technological limitation, one also found in other times and places around the world.

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	04 Jul 2017 09:02
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 07:00
DOI:	10.1111/ojoa.12137
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3008315