Mining landscape of the Parque Mineiro de Aljustrel · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Aljustrel Copper Mines

Vipasca

MineLusitania · Aljustrel, Beja District, PortugalBuilt 50 CE

About

Copper cementation tanks at Algares turned scrap iron and mine water into usable metal on an industrial scale at this Lusitanian mining district. Bronze tablets found here preserved the actual mining code Rome used to regulate leases, wages, and bathhouse fees at state-run mines. The workings had been active for decades by 117 CE, well before Hadrian's administration later formalized the regulations found inscribed on those tablets.

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.

In ancient writing

Lex Metalli Vipascensis (anonymous, Roman imperial mining regulation), CIL II 5181 5181
Two bronze tablets found at Aljustrel (ancient Vipasca) in 1876 and 1906 preserve mining regulations for an imperial metalla district. One concrete surviving provision fixes bathhouse admission fees and hours: men pay half an as and may bathe from the eighth hour until the second hour of night, while women pay a full as and bathe from daybreak to the seventh hour. The tablets also regulate leases (conductores), the status of coloni, slaves and free wage-laborers (mercenarii), and the sale or transfer of mining claims.