Scientists and Archaeologists at cross purposes

Roman of lead extracted from the Sierra of Cartagena about two thousand years ago ended up sinking near the coast of Sardinia. These were recently recovered and used to build the ‘Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events’ (CUORE) in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy.

CUORE is a detector of neutrinos that are almost weightless subatomic particles. It is a part of ongoing efforts to identify dark matter particles. The lead ingots recovered from another old ship which sank off the French coast in the 18th century has also been bought by the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) team in Minnesota.

The lead that is extracted today is contaminated with the isotope Pb-210, which prevents it from being used as shielding for particle detectors, as per a researcher at the University of Cambridge. This leads scientists to use old lead ingots in the research. Unfortunately archaeologists say that it is a destruction of heritage.

Should our cultural heritage be sacrificed to gain greater knowledge of the universe and the origin of humankind? What they are looking for now is recovery  of lead ingots for knowledge in both fields, and not merely for commercial reasons. Perhaps this science project is best left to those who are not so bothered about the destruction of ancient artifacts.