LEAD. — Lead was employed in antiquity for the most varied purposes: for conduits, little crosses, weights, tokens, vials, plaques, fibulae, funerary urns, etc.
In the Philosophumena it is related that Christians were condemned εἰς μέταλλον Σερβινίας (IX, 11), to the lead mines; St. Cyprian likewise recalls faithful Christians sent to the lead mines. Lead chests were used for the transfer of corpses; some were found in Alexandria, where they were used to carry the bodies of Jews back to Palestine. In the Passio of Saints Claudius, Nicostratus, etc., it is said that the bodies of these martyrs were enclosed in loculi plumbei, just as in an arca plumbea the bodies of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen were said to have been deposited by a certain Quirinius (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, I Santi Quattro, in Note Agiografiche, 4 [*Studi e testi, 24], Rome 1912, p. 62). Lead sarcophagi from the Christian period have often been found in France, Spain, and Dalmatia, at Manastirine and Salona. A Christian lead sarcophagus, discovered in ancient Sala at Rabat in Morocco, bears five Greek crosses engraved on its lid (R. Thouvenot, Sarcophage chrétien découvert à Rabat, in Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscr. et belles lettres, 1949, pp. 257–243). The Liber Pontificalis also several times records that corpses were transferred in lead chests (ed. Duchesne, I, 288, 306): that of Agapitus from Constantinople to Rome, and that of Narses in the opposite direction. Many imperial and papal lead seals are known, among them one of Pope Honorius I found at Carthage (A. L. Delattre, in Riv. di arch. crist., 4 [1927], p. 345). In the Berlin Museum, on a lead sheet found at Rhodes, almost the entire Psalm 79 is engraved in Greek (A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta Studien, II, Stuttgart 1904–11, p. 14). At Carthage a lead vessel was found bearing various scenes, including the Good Shepherd (G. B. De Rossi, Memorie sopra un vaso di p. trovato nella Reggenza di Tunisi, in Bull. arch. crist., 1st series, 5 [1867], p. 77 ff. and pl. VIII). There are also lead vials for oils from the sanctuaries of Palestine, little crosses, sacred images, and small amphorae (e.g., in O. Wulff, Altchristl. und Mittelalterl. Bildwerbe, Berlin 1909, p. 224 and pl. 55). A lead chalice was found at Vendreuil and is now in the Rouen Museum (L. De Vesly, Calice de plomb trouvé à Notre-Dame de Vendreuil (Europe), in Bull. archéol. du Comité, 1913, pp. 181–83). Lead conduits include the one originating from S. Lorenzo al Verano and now in the Lateran Museum, bearing a reference to a sixth-century Pope John, and another belonging to the basilica’s provost, named Stephen (O. Marucchi, in N. Bull. arch. crist., 8 [1902], p. 198). A lead fibula was published by G. B. De Rossi (Bull. arch. crist.*, 3rd series, 3 [1878], pl. I, nos. 1–2). Perforated lead sheets were used for windows in Palermo Cathedral, at Monresle in the Cathedral and in other churches, and at S. Antonio in Taormina. Perforated lead remains, one bearing the date 1493, are still in place in the rose window of the façade of Bitetto Cathedral, and others bearing the date 1597 in the rose window of the façade of Ruvo Cathedral. In Barletta Cathedral (sacristy) there is preserved a lead lamp-holder from the eleventh century (Enc. Catt., VII, LAMPADA, col. 869).