The mineral therapeutics of the Greco-Roman world have traditionally received less attention compared to their botanical counterparts. 

Dioscorides (1st c CE) provides us with a list of these materials in the 5th book of his Materia Medica. They form a very interesting collection on account of  their diversity: they include clays (earths), stones and  metallic (Cu, Pb, As, Fe, Ag-based) compounds, both natural and synthetic. Our work over the years has focused on: 

a.  the earths from the Aegean islands of Lemnos, Samos, Melos  and  Kimolos, 

b. natural metallic compounds including earth pigments from Melos and Kea island and 

c.  synthesised  metallic salts (lead carbonate and copper acetates) manufactured in the workshops of antiquity. 

All of the above had acclaimed therapeutic properties and were used on their own or as ingredients in pharmacological preparations. Many have also been used as pigments in art, albeit, primarily in later periods.