Local mining or lead importation in the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis? Lead isotope analysis of curse tablets from Roman Carthage, Tunisia

Economic resilience of Carthage during the Punic Wars: Insights from sediments of the Medjerda delta around Utica (Tunisia)

“…Similar cases have been documented in, for example, Bulgaria (30), Iran (31), and Mexico (32). For Tunisia, the isotopic contrast is all the more pronounced because its metallic resources, almost exclusively galena and sphalerite (33,34), are hosted by tectonically, lithologically, and stratigraphically widely diverse environments, which, moreover, cover geological periods from the Triassic to the Upper Miocene (5-253 Ma) (8,35). iii) In addition to the coevolution of Pb leachate-residue pairs in the Utica core sediments ( Fig.…”

“…3). Like the mines of Djebba, the Bou Jaber mines are suspected to have been exploited since antiquity (8,17), while the Slata deposits are believed to have been worked only since medieval times (8,33).…”

“…Our knowledge of ancient mining centers (i) is focused mainly on Roman mining districts (a question of textual sources?) (6,7), (ii) tends to emphasize major centers to the detriment of smaller ones (8), and (iii) concerns Central and Western Europe more than North Africa (5)(6)(7)(9)(10)(11)(12), often without robust chronological timelines (7). This paradox is all the more striking when one observes the spatial distribution of lead-silver mines within the Roman Empire, which is largely devoid of them along its southern and eastern fringes (5)(6)(7).…”

Provenance evidence for Roman lead artefacts of distinct chronology from Portuguese archaeological sites

“…On the other hand, it must be taken into account that these leaden sling bullets are small artefacts easily transported from one place to another by Roman legionaries, and a comparison with data from the main ore bodies of the Mediterranean regions exploited during Roman times must be also performed. Therefore, Pb isotope ratios of galena and other lead ore sources from different Mediterranean regions, namely Greece, Sardinia, Tuscany (Boni and Koeppel, 1985;Stos-Gale et al, 1995, Mont-Lozére Massif and Cévennes-Montagne Noir, in Gallia Narbonensis (Trincherini et al, 2001;Baron et al, 2006) and Tunisia (Skaggs et al, 2012) were plotted in Fig. 5 together with those of glandes plumbeae.…”

Lead Labelling on Roman Amphoras. A Short‐Lived Fashion?

“…The only labels found in their original use were on African amphoras and the Portmán assemblage included large percentages of African ceramics (Quevedo, 2015: 229). However, it cannot yet be confirmed whether the lead used also came from that region, although Africa Pronconsularis is known to have produced that metal (Skaggs et al ., 2012). Neither can it be ruled out that the raw material came from other parts of the Empire.…”