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The aim of this project is to better understand the last stage of the production chain of a metal, lead, which was omnipresent in the Roman period, from the end of the Republic and under the Empire, that is, its marketing, its organisation, its logistics and its constraints, and the management of the resource. We propose here to work on one of the manufactured products that required large quantities of metal, the fistulae aquariae, or lead pipes that formed the water conveyance networks that Roman cities were equipped with. The latter provide information, both epigraphic (names of the craftsmen and/or clients) and geochemical (elemental and isotopic composition of the metal, which is that of the original ore), which, if duly analysed and cross-referenced, could provide information on the techniques used to manufacture the pipes, the origin of the metal used on them and, consequently, the sources of supply for the market, the evolution of the latter over time and the commercial strategies put in place. Epigraphy will allow us to better understand, thanks to the systematic inventory and the study of the names found on the pipes, the organisation of the lead market from the point of view of its actors, both private and public (emperors, cities), and the relationships they maintained between them. The project is therefore fundamentally interdisciplinary: it brings together researchers in history, archaeology and archaeometry around common problems. It will focus on several distinct geographical sectors, Rome and Ostia, Campania, Aquileia and Veneto, the middle Rhone valley and the cities of Mediterranean Gaul, which functioned as independent markets, but which should be compared in order to draw general conclusions about the global trade in Roman lead.
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