{"id":1956,"date":"2014-05-09T08:02:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T08:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moocs.southampton.ac.uk\/portus\/?p=464"},"modified":"2014-05-09T08:02:21","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T08:02:21","slug":"lead-and-the-roman-water-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/archaeology\/2014\/05\/09\/lead-and-the-roman-water-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead and the Roman water system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Half a century after lead poisoning was proposed as the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, a wave of publications to refute this idea put an end to this theory. Although lead is no longer considered the main culprit in the decline of Roman civilization, its presence in the Roman water distribution system water is still worthy of consideration as a major public health problem. The Archaeology of Portus course will introduce some of the methods employed in this research.<\/p>\n

By measuring the isotopic composition of the lead in the sediments of the docks of the port of Imperial Rome (Portus) and the Tiber, a new\u00a0study has shown that the piped water of ancient Rome contained up to 100 times more lead than the local water sources. Moreover, fluctuations in the isotopic signal of the lead in the sedimentary deposits studied indicate that they are closely linked to major historical events that affected Rome and its water distribution systems in late antiquity.<\/p>\n

This research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers in Lyon involving the Laboratoire d\u2019Environnement, Ville, Soci\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> (EVS, CNRS\/Lyon2\/Lyon3\/UJM\/INSA de Lyon\/ENS de Lyon\/ENTPE), the Laboratoire de G\u00e9ologie de Lyon Terre, Plan\u00e8te, Environnement<\/em> (ENS de Lyon \/Universit\u00e9 Claude Bernard Lyon 1\/CNRS) and the Laboratoire Arch\u00e9orient<\/em> (CNRS\/Universit\u00e9 Lumi\u00e8re Lyon 2) of the Maison de l’Orient et de la M\u00e9diterran\u00e9e – Jean Pouilloux<\/em>. This study was published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in April 2014.<\/p>\n

Research paper:\u00a0http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/111\/18\/6594.abstract<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Hugo Delile<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Janne Blichert-Toft<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Jean-Philippe Goiran<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Simon Keay<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Francis Albar\u00e8de<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Guardian link:\u00a0http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2014\/apr\/21\/ancient-rome-tap-water-contaminated-lead-researchers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Half a century after lead poisoning was proposed as the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, a wave of publications to refute this idea put an end to this theory. Although lead is no longer considered the main culprit in the decline of Roman civilization, its presence in the Roman water distribution system water is still worthy of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":371,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,471,602,889],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeological-science","tag-lead-isotopes","tag-palaeoenvironmental-coring","tag-week-three","column","threecol"],"yoast_head":"\nLead and the Roman water system - Archaeology Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/archaeology\/2014\/05\/09\/lead-and-the-roman-water-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lead and the Roman water system - Archaeology Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Half a century after lead poisoning was proposed as the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, a wave of publications to refute this idea put an end to this theory. 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