Becoming Rich with Daily Scavenging APP-Chapter 503: Lead Ingots from Ancient Rome

Chen Yiyang and the others felt their hearts leap to their throats.

Everyone was extremely nervous.

It’s all riding on this moment, whether they’ll make a fortune or lose their shirts.

The professionals quickly extracted the items from the wooden crate.

"Looks like copper ingots." Jack said, his tone tinged with disappointment.

He observed the contents of the box from a distance; they appeared to be metal smelted goods among bulk commodities.

The probability was high that they were copper ingots, though there was a small chance they might be iron ingots.

However, neither of these are worth much.

The modern production of such goods is enormous.

Jack had previously participated in the salvage of an ancient Middle Eastern ship. This ancient ship used to carry cargo between Huaxia.

At that time, everyone thought it would contain priceless porcelain.

But to their surprise, upon salvage, they found iron pots purchased from Huaxia, specifically by the Middle East.

Huaxia’s high-temperature iron smelting technology has been ahead of Europe by over two thousand years.

Throughout these two thousand years of history, Huaxia’s most commonly exported product was actually iron implements, not the touted porcelain and silk.

Even during the Ming and Qing dynasties, iron pots remained one of Huaxia’s most significant exports to Europe.

Jack’s team had fallen into this trap more than once.

Chen Yiyang also saw the items taken out from the metal container.

However, he did not hurry.

After all, the tips mentioned a significant return.

He was very curious now, wondering what kind of metal cargo was so valuable—could it be rare minerals?

Soon, the test results came out.

The expert responsible for the test reported back.

"They’re lead ingots. This whole batch of cargo contains lead ingots."

Chen Yiyang didn’t have time to speak before Jack, beside him, was already extremely excited.

"Are you sure? Lead ingots cast during Ancient Rome?!"

"Confirmed." The expert nodded.

"We’re going to strike it rich!"

Without any hesitation, Jack turned and embraced a still bewildered Chen Yiyang.

"We’re going to strike it rich!" Jack began to cheer wildly.

The entire Jack team was also extraordinarily uplifted.

Only Chen Yiyang and Schaefer beside him were still confused.

Lead is fairly commonplace and cheap in modern times, right? What’s the big fortune here?

At that moment, the head of the Yangcheng salvage team quietly approached and pulled Chen Yiyang aside.

"Based on our previous survey, this cargo ship likely carries a uniform load. In other words, at least half of the cargo on this entire ship is lead ingots.

Can I contact some friends in the country to inquire about the price? If the price is right, could you prioritize selling these lead ingots domestically?"

"Honestly, I still don’t understand why lead from Ancient Rome is so valuable." Chen Yiyang asked, puzzled.

"That’s where the properties of lead come in." The head, being a science and engineering expert, immediately began explaining to Chen Yiyang.

Lead is a high-quality material with extremely low radiation interference; it can naturally shield against radiation interference.

Thus, many nuclear radiation experiments rely on lead and aluminum to ensure safety.

Because of this property of lead, many important cosmological experiments require the use of low-radiation lead, or low-background materials.

But lead also has a problem.

While lead can shield against radiation, it also contains radioactive lead-210 itself.

Thus, newly mined lead cannot be used directly in experiments. The half-life of lead-210 is over twenty years, and more half-life cycles are better for experimental use.

For instance, lead used to observe neutrino decay requires lead that has undergone dozens of half-life cycles.

Therefore, while lead itself is cheap, lead mined long ago becomes very valuable, often with demand exceeding supply, even money can’t buy it.

Many large modern laboratories and renowned research teams use low-background lead sourced from old church drains or ruins.

Not only is it hard to find, but finding it and buying it immediately is even harder.

Moreover, importantly, ancient Huaxia realized very early that lead was problematic, so they used it sparingly.

The most lead was found in noble bronze utensils from the Yinshang period.

Nobles from the Yinshang period liked to use bronze goblets made of lead-tin to warm wine over charcoal fires.

The famous bronze goblet used by King Zhou of Shang contained 23% lead, and he liked to drink wine from it.

One theory suggests that King Zhou went mad in his later years possibly due to this reason. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

But soon, Huaxia people discovered there was something off about this and later added lead to arrowheads to increase the lethality.

After that, aside from the crazies who consumed alchemical drugs, lead-containing utensils were rarely used.

This led to very little ancient Huaxia lead suitable for experiments, most of it found in precious Yinshang period bronze utensils.

You can’t just melt down thousands of years old historical artifacts for experiments.

But Ancient Rome was different.

The Romans genuinely adored lead.

Due to Europe’s prolonged unfamiliarity with high-temperature metal smelting, they couldn’t smelt iron.

Lead’s melting point is only over three hundred degrees, so Romans used lead extensively in pipes, coins, and utensils.

Eventually, they even crazily invented lead sugar.

Back then, Romans lacked cheap sweeteners; honey was marvelous but unaffordable for common folks.

Then the Romans discovered that lead seemed to have a sweet taste.

Thus, lead sugar was born.

In modern times, this is a toxic chemical, yet in Ancient Rome, people consumed lead sugar in wine.

This caused the average lifespan of Romans to plummet.

So much so that some scholars believe the Romans later turned their military entirely over to the barbarians due to their reduced birth rates and widespread lead poisoning, unable to engage in battles.

After the fall of Rome, people realized it was highly toxic, but lead sugar’s accessibility often caused it to resurface, continuing to plague Europeans for another millennium.

"Based on the massive demand from the Ancient Romans for lead and considering this cargo ship’s size and structure."

The Yangcheng salvage team leader explained to Chen Yiyang, "I estimate that at least tens of tons of lead ingots are in this sunken ship, worth a minimum of 700 million US Dollars!"

Chen Yiyang now understood why Jack’s team was overjoyed.

Even salvaging a wreck full of artifacts wouldn’t guarantee an immediate sale rendering hundreds of millions in cash.

But this ship filled with lead ingots would surely attract research institutions worldwide willing to pay the price once Chen Yiyang made it known!

After all, it’s a finite resource!

Realizing this, Chen Yiyang quickly called people he knew domestically to inquire about quotes for this batch of lead.

He urged the leader to quicken the pace of the salvage, lest the news leak and attract unwanted attention.

Lead ingots from the Ancient Roman sunken ship in Sardinian waters.