engleski

Ancient Lead Metallurgy and the Application of Lead Artifacts in Ancient Times

The paper describes the typical applications of lead and its compounds, which have been used since 8 000 years by many civilizations. Products such as cosmetics, a medicine, pottery glazing, and as a food additive were commonly accepted for far too many centuries. Different engineering applications were made possible due to the easily available large amounts of the lead-containing ore, and to the simple metallurgical production technology, with lead having a relatively low melting point. The remains of one of the first human attempts to melt the lead-rich ore galena was found in today’s Bosnia, which is described in the paper. Lead is a soft and easily malleable metal, which has allowed lead to be used in many engineering applications that require high plasticity. Besides art figures, and value-expressing Roman tesserae, one of the lead usage examples explained in the paper is the Roman water supply system found in the Sisak area in Croatia. In addition, numerous lead engineering applications found on ancient Roman ships are discussed in the paper.

lead, melting, ancient Rome, applications

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