Colonia (Sluiced Mine)

Found in abundance across the whole world, lead has been used by people for thousands of years as it is extremely soft, malleable and easy to extract by smelting. The Egyptians used it to glaze pottery and the Babylonians and Assyrians used lead sheets for construction. However, the Romans were the greatest exploiters of it, with an estimated annual output of eighty thousand tonnes. Lead was extracted from crushed and smelted galena ore, a by-product of silver mining. The Romans used 'plumbum' to line their baths and make their water pipes, hence the English word 'plumber'. Even the gladiators in the Coliseum used lead as knuckle covers.