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A review of Roman lead-alloy material recovered from the Walbrook valley in the City of London

C E E Jones


Fifty-three objects are catalogued and illustrated, mostly from deposits in the Walbrook valley which are conventionally given a terminal date of c. AD 155. Others have argued that this part of the Roman settlement was an industrial rather than a residential area; and it has commonly been assumed that the ‘pewter’ recovered from the lowest levels of the watercourse was either manufactured or traded in London. If so, this would be some 150 years earlier than the date normally suggested for the floruit of the pewter industry in Roman Britain.

X-ray fluorescence analysis demonstrates, however, that almost all the objects are nearly pure tin, whereas 3rd-4th-century pewter is an alloy of about 60-80% tin and 20-40% lead. This suggests that there is no connection with the later pewter industry of Roman Britain, but that a tin industry may have been based in the Walbrook valley until the mid 2nd century, involved in the production of domestic or tableware items, for example plates and canisters.

[Transactions 34 (1983), pp 49 – 59; abstract by Francis Grew, 11-Oct-1996]

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