The silver treasure of Marengo: silver provenancing and insights into late antiquity Roman and Gallo-Roman hoards
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The silver treasure of Marengo: silver provenancing and insights into late antiquity Roman and Gallo-Roman hoards Ivana Angelini 1,2
&
Caterina Canovaro 2,3 & Marica Venturino 4 & Gilberto Artioli 2,3
Received: 27 July 2018 / Accepted: 2 May 2019 / Published online: 29 May 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Lead isotopic ratios were measured on silver fragments extracted from several important objects of the hoard of Marengo. The hoard, known as the Btreasure of Marengo^, is one of the most important silver assemblages of late antiquity. It is dated to the second half of the 2nd century AD-first half of the 3rd century AD. The interpretation of the resulting isotopic data based on extended reference isotopic databases of lead/silver ores indicates that most of the analysed objects from Marengo form a rather homogeneus stock of silver metal having a signature affine to the mines of French Massif Central. One of the objects, a large belt with figures of divinity and heroes, was made of Iberian silver, and the Pb-Ag-Cu alloy present in the filling of the arm of a female statuette is rich in Sardinian lead. The results are discussed in terms of the known circulation of silver metal in the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd century AD. The lead isotope data are compared with available data on coeval Roman silver hoards (Notre Dame d’Allençon, Berthouville, Graincourt-lès-Havrincourt, Boscoreale), circulating silver denarii, and Roman lead ingots rescued from shipwrecks in the Western Mediterranean sea. The role of the Iberian and French mines in the silver production from the 1st to the first half of the 3rd century AD is discussed. Keywords Roman silver . Hoard of Marengo . Silver provenance . Lead isotopes . Denarii . Lead ingots
Introduction The Btreasure of Marengo^ is one of the famous silver hoards of late Roman antiquity (Bendinelli 1937; Ronchetta 1983; Micheletto and Pantò 2013; Micheletto and Venturino 2017). It is composed by tens of silver objects of different size, totalling about 26 kg of metal, and it certainly belongs to the type of collected ensemble of fragmented objects aimed to be recycled (Bargentum dilaceratum^ or Bhacksilber^; Balmuth and Thompson 2000). It is currently believed that the ensemble of
* Ivana Angelini [email protected] 1
Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Padova, piazza Capitaniato 7, 35139 Padova, Italy
2
INSTM, Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali, via G. Giusti 9, 50121 Florence, Italy
3
Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova, via G. Gradenigo 6, 35131 Padova, Italy
4
Soprintendenze archeologia belle arti e paesaggio per le province di Alessandria, Asti e Cuneo, piazza S. Giovanni 2, 10122 Torino, Italy
the silver pieces was part of the offering of one temple. In any case, the treasure bears a very complex history both before the deposition in the place where it was found, and an even more complex history after the uneart
