The Casting Technique of Romano-British Lead Ingots

Bibliographic Data

ID9344399
AuthorsG Clement Whittick (corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume51
Issue1-2
Pages105-111
Publication date1961-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Roman Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0075-4358 • E-ISSN: 1753-528X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/298843
OpenAlexW2326033681
LanguageEN
Citations received6

The striations visible on the side and end surfaces of Romano-British ingots of lead aroused comment at an early date. They have sometimes been explained in the past as caused by the grain of wood used as a pattern for the mould—an explanation which neither accords well with their actual appearance as seen on many ingots nor with a variety of technical evidence now available which leads to the almost certain conclusion that the moulds were made of smoothed clay: but more generally the striations have been held to prove that casting was done plecemeal by the ladling of a series of small batches of metal into the mould, and early writers thus claim to have discerned from nine or ten up to twenty-seven or thirty ‘layers’ produced in ingots by such a method. This was the view categorically stated by W. Gowland in his important study of Roman lead at the beginning of this century: ‘Roman lead smelting furnaces used in Britain did not possess tap-holes, but ... the lead was taken out ... by means of a ladle,’ and he went on to say that the structure of many of the ingots reveals that they ‘consist not of solid blocks of lead, but of a series of distinct layers, tolerably uniform in thickness, which can be more or less easily separated from one another. Such a structure can only have been produced by pouring the lead into the mould in successive portions with a sufficient interval of time between each to allow of one solidifying before the next was added’

Casting · Lead (geology · Metallurgy · Smelting · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Geology · Materials Science · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts · Paleontology

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