# Using Roman lead ingots for research
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 26, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118 "2025-03-26T00:33:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/1 "2025-03-26T00:33:27Z")
This is piggy backed off the sunken timbers thread. It was noted that scientists are using old Roman lead ingots for shielding sensitive experiments. I really don’t have a problem with this. I would think they could cast exact copies of the old ingots to replace them in a display After all, it is just a display, on one is using the lead for anything else.
But the question I have is how does modern lead ore get contaminated? I assume it is dug from far underground. Does the refining process itself introduce radioactive isotopes?
> **[Controversy over the use of Roman ingots to investigate dark matter and...](https://phys.org/news/2013-11-controversy-roman-ingots-dark-neutrinos.html)**
>
> The properties of these lead bricks recovered from ancient shipwrecks are ideal for experiments in particle physics. Scientists from the CDMS dark matter detection project in Minnesota (USA) and from the CUORE neutrino observatory at the Gran Sasso...
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/2 "2025-03-26T01:40:42Z")
Here’s the explanation I found.
> **[Ancient Roman Metal Used for Physics Experiments Ignites Science Feud](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-roman-lead-physics-archaeology-controversy/)**
>
> Physicists prefer Roman-era lead ingots to recently mined metal for shielding particle experiments, but archaeologists want them preserved
Apparently all lead is contaminated naturally with uranium 235, which decays into lead 210, a radioactive isotope. During the refining of lead, the uranium is removed, but the lead 210 is left behind. This means that refined lead is no longer generating new lead 210. Since lead 210 has a half life of 22 years, the lead 210 originally present in the Roman lead has had around 100 half lives, and so most of it is gone.
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### Author:  [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/3 "2025-03-26T01:46:49Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> Since lead 210 has a half life of 22 years, the lead 210 originally present in the Roman lead has had around 100 half lives, and so most of it is gone.
Yeah it’s nothing to do with nuclear explosions as some such things are, it’s just a matter of radioactive decay.
Though I would be concerned about offending the god of stolen lead ingots, which is probably a thing the Romans had 😉
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/4 "2025-03-26T01:54:08Z")
> [@griffin1977](#):
>
> Though I would be concerned about offending the god of stolen lead ingots, which is probably a thing the Romans had 😉
The article from the OP claims it’s likely those lead ingots were the property of Nero or Caligula. AFAIK the Julio-Claudian line died out, so maybe compensation would be to the Italian government, similar to how the Spanish government claims the sunken gold from Spanish ships?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/5 "2025-03-26T01:59:34Z")
Or to the government of the successor state to the Roman Empire, if you can figure out an agreed-upon answer as to who that is.
And yes, the Romans would have had a god of stolen lead ingots, because the Romans had a god of everything. Or at least, a spirit of anything, but in the Roman religion, a god was just the spirit of something that was sufficiently big and important.
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/6 "2025-03-26T02:01:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Or to the government of the successor state to the Roman Empire, if you can figure out an agreed-upon answer as to who that is.
Maybe the Vatican? I can’t imagine anyone else that would have a legitimate claim.
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### Author:  [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/7 "2025-03-26T02:02:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Or to the government of the successor state to the Roman Empire, if you can figure out an agreed-upon answer as to who that is.
The Republic of Türkiye, obviously.
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/8 "2025-03-26T02:05:23Z")
Either way, it seems to me they’re being used for a good cause. They’ve been careful to use only those bars that are the most worn down / least likely to be of archaeological interest.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/9 "2025-03-26T13:38:49Z")
> [@UDS1](#):
>
> The Republic of Türkiye, obviously.
They’re one of the more serious contenders. The reasoning is that the later Roman emperors moved east to Byzantium, so the Byzantine empire was the successor to the Roman empire. Byzantium later got absorbed into the Ottoman empire, and the Ottoman empire then shrank into the modern nation of Turkiye. But pretty much every nation in Europe has some sort of claim they can hang their hat on.
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### Author:  [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/10 "2025-03-26T15:46:09Z")
> [@griffin1977](#):
>
> Though I would be concerned about offending the god of stolen lead ingots, which is probably a thing the Romans had 😉
Well either Fraus (goddess of trickery and fraud) or Nataero (god of lost and found items). Or Laverna, godess of thieves.
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### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/11 "2025-03-26T16:50:21Z")
Plumbus, goddess of plumbing?
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/12 "2025-03-26T18:41:06Z")
Cardea, goddess of hinges. The Romans used pivot hinges for their front doors, so technically, the goddess of pivot hinges.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/13 "2025-03-26T20:00:35Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> They’ve been careful to use only those bars that are the most worn down / least likely to be of archaeological interest.
I’m with you. Durable, mass produced Roman artifacts aren’t rare and often aren’t interesting. A old lead ingot only has so much information to give us and, after cataloging, is better used for a contemporary application that needs its unique, non-renewable composition. But I’d also want to limit it to those applications, we don’t need to use Roman lead for sweating pipes or car batteries.
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### Author:  [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/14 "2025-03-27T01:11:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> They’re one of the more serious contenders. The reasoning is that the later Roman emperors moved east to Byzantium, so the Byzantine empire was the successor to the Roman empire. Byzantium later got absorbed into the Ottoman empire, and the Ottoman empire then shrank into the modern nation of Turkiye. But pretty much every nation in Europe has some sort of claim they can hang their hat on.
For completeness — what we refer to as the Byzantine Empire called itself the Roman empire; its citizens called themselves Romans and its ruler used the title Emperor of Rome. This continued until Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, at which point the Ottoman Sultans adopted the additional title of kayser-i Rûm (Caesar of Rome), claiming to have acquired the Roman imperium by right of conquest. The Ottoman Sultanate continued until 1922 and there is no argument but that the Republic of Turkiye is the successor state to the Ottomans.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/15 "2025-03-27T11:53:47Z")
The complication, of course (well, one of the complications) is that the Westerners (including those in the city of Rome itself) also called themselves Romans, and had their own emperor. So you could argue that they were the real Romans, and that the Imperium passed to whichever “barbarian” nation it was that finally conquered the city.
> [@UDS1](#):
>
> The Ottoman Sultanate continued until 1922 and there is no argument but that the Republic of Turkiye is the successor state to the Ottomans.
No good argument, maybe, but there is an argument. Russia also claims to be the successor state to the Ottoman Empire (and hence to Rome), I don’t remember on what basis. Of course, Russia claims a lot of things that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2025, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/16 "2025-03-27T15:18:01Z")
There were several intermarriages between Russian and Eastern Roman royalty. Two were of significance. One during the Rus days when an early Rurik (Kievian) dynasty ruler married the daughter of an emperor. This “legitimized” the Rus royalty as being on a par with other European nations’ and provided a “descent from Caesars” claim. Another was much later when Ivan III married the granddaughter of the 3rd to last emperor. Different Russian dynasty based around Moscow. But again, “legitimized” them.
Ivan III “The Great” changed the Muscovite world a lot. He went from being called “prince” to “tsar”, expanded territory, ran off the last of the Mongol hordes, etc. He was the one who started calling Moscow “the third Rome”.
Western European-wise, the Holy Roman Empire was considered the successor state to the Western empire. It lasted until Napoleon, and then whatever heritage it had passed to Germany. Remember the 3rd Reich? The first was the HRE.
Given where the lead was found and the time of it’s making, Germany was the clearest edge, if any, to claiming the lead.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2025, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/17 "2025-03-30T05:40:47Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> Western European-wise, the Holy Roman Empire was considered the successor state to the Western empire. It lasted until Napoleon, and then whatever heritage it had passed to Germany. Remember the 3rd Reich? The first was the HRE.
It seems to me that Austria would have a better claim to be successor to the HRE. Or maybe even Liechtenstein.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2025, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-roman-lead-ingots-for-research/1016118/18 "2025-03-30T08:24:56Z")
Getting back to the OP, could they use lead from more recent eras, such as the 18th to early 19th centuries? Those would have had 8 to 15 half-lives of lead 210 after refinement. Would that be good enough for the physicists?