History of mining in Sardinia

Mining and the processing of minerals date back to ancient times in Sardinia.

Ancient traders and conquerors, attracted by the astonishing underground riches, were drawn to the island's coast. Evidence of ancient metal processing is given in the many placenames connected with mining: examples include Argentiera, Montiferru, Funtana Raminosa, and Capo Ferrato. The term Gennargentu (silver carrier) comes from Eugenio Marchese, then manager of the mining district of Sardinia, bringing it back to the records of an ancient processing of the precious metal around the village of Talana.

The long mining history of Sardinia started probably around the 6th millennium BC with the mining of obsidian at the slant of Monte Arci in the central-eastern part of the island. Monte Arci was one of the most important Mediterranean centres for mining and processing of this volcanic glass in the area. As a matter of fact at least seventy processed hectares of land and about 160 steady or temporary settlements have been found from which obsidian was later exported to Southern France and Northern Italy.

About 3000 BC the metal working practices, probably exported there from the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea, expanded into Sardinia too, where they reached a highly practical level. Silver extraction was one of the earliest in Europe, known since the early Chalcolithic. Together with metal working, mining practices also developed allowing the mining of growing amounts of minerals and then of metals.

The geographical position of the island and its mining asset, attracted, between the tenth and the 8th century BC, Phoenician merchants, that were replaced by Carthaginians. Phoenicians and Carthaginians deeply exploited the mining richness, above all in the Iglesiente, where there are some traces of excavations and wastes of fusion ascribable to this period. An intense metal working activity, both in excavation and in fusion, is evidenced by its archaeological viewpoint, by the large ore bodies rich in metal of Sarrabus, made up of minerals compounded by oxides and iron sulphide, copper and lead.

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