Wikimedia Commons — Cabezo Rajao mine workings in the Sierra Minera de Cartagena-La Unión, exploited for silver and lead since Roman times

Sierra Minera silver/lead mining district

Metalla Carthaginis Novae

MineHispania Tarraconensis · La Union / Cartagena, SpainBuilt 210 BCE

About

The vast silver-and-lead mining district in the hills east of Carthago Nova, worked since Hannibal drew on its silver in the 220s BCE and massively expanded under Rome. The geographer Strabo counted roughly 40,000 workers, most of them enslaved, laboring across the district around the turn of the era. Its output made Carthago Nova one of the wealthiest cities in Hispania Tarraconensis for two centuries.

What happened here

Work goes on underground by lamplight in shifts, and the lamp is also the clock. Galleries follow the ore, propped with timber, drained by wooden screws and bucket wheels worked by hand in stages up the shaft. Ventilation is a second shaft and a fire to draw the air. The labour is convicts, slaves and paid men working side by side on different terms, and the paid men do the skilled cutting. Above ground the ore is crushed, washed in long channels, and smelted, and the smoke kills the vegetation for miles. Mines of any size are imperial property, leased to contractors under written regulations covering shifts, drainage, bath-house charges and who may open a new gallery. Settlements grow around them fast and empty just as fast.