here is a link to an interesting article about measuring the concentration of lead pollution from ancient times in ice cores from Greenland. Since silver is smelted from lead, some neat inferences are made which can be corroborated by other data. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/ice-core-lead-roman-empire.amp.html Hope you enjoy.
That is indeed pretty interesting. And with all that lead in their food and water and the atmosphere, I suppose it's small wonder they lived in such violent times. That can't have had a very salubrious effect on everybody's health and neurological condition!
This is fantastic. Amazing research, and great evidence for ups and downs of the ancient economy. It correlates well with other evidence, but I wonder if there are idiosyncratic factors behind lead pollution, such as decreased demand for new silver following capture of booty?
