The Belgammel ram examined

[Duncan Head]

http://noc.ac.uk/news/bronze-warship-ram-reveals-secrets

[Patrick Waterson]

"The result shows that the lead component of the metal could have come from a district of Attica in Greece called Lavrion."

Laurion was where Athens had the silver mines from which the Athenian navy was originally financed at the suggestion of Themistocles.  Silver and lead are often found together, and one is led to wonder whether the ship from which the ram came might be of Athenian origin.  The timespan is right for a ship operating as an ally of Mithridates VI Eupator, the Mithridates of the Mithridatic wars.  (It is of course also right for a ship of Sextus Pompeius, who never controlled Athens but who did oppose Lepidus, who had Africa, or Brutus, Cassius and friends, or even Mark Anthony, all of whom did control Athens.)

Hence we might very tentatively suggest this particular ship was on a guerre de course against Rome's corn supply and came up against the wrong opponent or was hunted down by same.  Or it was a luckless Pompeian ship in Sextus' otherwise generally successful operations against Lepidus.

Casting large bronze objects could make use of methods and processes established in Biblical times.

"In the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarthan." - I Kings 7:46

[Duncan Head]

Perhaps over-interpreting? The lead could have been exported from Attica - http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/22-2/Eiseman.pdf for ingots of Laurion lead in the Porticello wreck of c.400 BC - in which case the ram (and hence the ship) could have been anybody's.

[Patrick Waterson]

Good point: I was not aware the Athenians were exporting lead on any major scale.  One lives and learns ...

[Erpingham]

Good point: I was not aware the Athenians were exporting lead on any major scale.  One lives and learns ...

Wasn't it a biproduct of the silver industry?

[Tim]

Interpretation can lead us astray, ending up with a theory that is holed below the waterline and sinks without trace for thousands of years...

[Patrick Waterson]

Wasn't it a biproduct of the silver industry?

Yes, which suggests the Laurion mines were still going strong in the 1st century BC.

Later on, in Wales, the Romans would mine silver as a by-product of lead mining, having originally gone for gold.

Interpretation can lead us astray, ending up with a theory that is holed below the waterline and sinks without trace for thousands of years...

... and is then rediscovered by archaeologists amid great rejoicing, thanks to a few stalwart pioneers who took the plunge.