Sometime around 8 to 9,000 years ago, ancient people in Asia Minor found a very dull gray metal that turned out to be easy to manipulate when it was heated.

For thousands of years, it was used for a variety of purposes, including as a food additive.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, even more uses were found for this unique medal.

However, by the 20th century, scientists realized that maybe this stuff really wasn't so good for us.

Learn more about lead, how it's been used throughout history and how our perception of

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As I mentioned in several previous episodes, there were seven metals that were known to ancient people. Gold, silver, tin, iron, copper, mercury, and lead.

I've done episodes on all the other metals of antiquity, and this is the episode about the last of the seven metals, lead.

So let's start with the basics of lead.

Lead sits at the 80 second position on the periodic table with 82 protons in its nucleus.

There are four stable isotopes of lead and lead is often created at the end point of

the decay chain of Uranium 238, Uranium 235, and thorium

232. Lead has the highest atomic number of any stable non-radiactive

element. Lead naturally has a very dull gray color, making it one of the few

metals that doesn't have a shiny silver color. One of the attributes of lead you're probably

familiar with is its density. Lead has a very high

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