Roman lead ingots from shipwrecks: a key to understanding immigration from Campania, Southern Latium and Picenum in the mining district of Carthago Nova in the Late Republican and Early Imperial eras

Roman lead ingots from the mines of Carthago Nova, found in several shipwrecks in Western Mediterranean, constitute an extraordinary source for understanding the immigration of people from Campania, Southern Latium and Picenum in the newly conquered provinces of Hispaniae: an interesting historical phenomenon described by contemporary authors, and which formed the basis for the Romanization of the Iberian Peninsula. The analysis of the gentilitia inscribed on the ingots, cross-referenced with Latin epigraphic data from Roman Spain and the Italian Peninsula permits in most cases the identification the nuclei of origin of several families, and allows us to retrace their routes to, their stories, and their destinies in Carthago Nova, while also allowing us at the to understand more deeply the cultural connections between that city and the homeland of the immigrants.