Free Republic

...the sources of silver used to produce Roman coinage have largely been used up, making it difficult to determine which deposits Roman miners exploited...The Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal, is host to world-class silver deposits, especially in the southern region. These deposits contain galena, which is the main ore of lead and an important source of silver. To extract silver, the galena ore is smelted and purified, with refined silver for coin minting able to reach a purity of over 95%.To track the source of Roman silver, the team of researchers analyzed the silver and lead compositions...

The object found was a large lead ingot or 'pig' (about half a metre long, weighing 63 kilograms). The 'writing' reported by Mr Jones was a cast Latin inscription confirming that it was Roman and about 2,000 years old... The exploitation of Britain's natural resources was one of the reasons cited by Roman authors for the invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius in AD 43... Lead ore or galena contains silver as well as lead, and both were valuable commodities for the Romans. Less than a hundred lead ingots of this type are known from the mines of Roman...

SYCAMORE, Ill. (AP) — Charles "Chuck" Ridulph always assumed the person who stole his little sister from the neighborhood corner where she played and dumped her body in a wooded stretch some 100 miles away was a trucker or passing stranger — surely not anyone from the hometown he remembers as one big, friendly playground. And, after more than a half century passed since her death, he assumed the culprit also had died or was in prison for some other crime. On Saturday, he said he was stunned by the news that a one-time neighbor had been charged in the...

A man has been charged with the killing of a seven-year-old girl 53 YEARS after she was abducted in a case that gripped America. Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, is accused of murdering Maria Ridulph, who was kidnapped while playing with a friend near her home. As almost an entire community and law enforcement agencies searched for her, President Eisenhower and FBI director J Edgar Hoover demanded daily briefings on the hunt. McCullough, from Seattle, is being held at Washington's King County jail today awaiting extradition after being picked up for questioning last Wednesday. The crime has haunted the city of...