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Ilva
About
Smoke from Elba's iron furnaces gave the island its ancient Greek name, Aithale, meaning sooty. Ore dug from Rio Marina's hillsides had crossed to the mainland smelters of Populonia for five centuries by the time Augustus made the Tyrrhenian a Roman lake. The furnace and the goat, a phrase modern researchers use for the island's fuelwood economy, captures how iron production here reshaped the landscape well into the early Empire, with 117 CE falling within its documented Roman-period operation.
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.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →