MINIERA DI MONTEVECCHIO

Before becoming one of the most productive mining sites in Europe between 1850 and 1960, the Montevecchio region was already known for its wealth of lead and zinc. The Romans and Carthaginians were already mining these metals west of Ingurtosu. The Romans mined the rock in tiny galleries. The Carthaginians would heat it and then freeze it and break it up. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the rate of extraction was increased by the Pisans and Aragonese. Around the year 1850, the Sardinian entrepreneur Giovanni Antonio Sanna obtained from the King of Sardinia the right to exploit the site, where he had a village built for the miners. The miners and their families were paid with a currency that could only be used in the shops and bars of the village, so they remained slaves of their bosses. The men work in the underground galleries, their wives break the rocks and separate the powders from the metals outside. Children also work with their parents, without pay or any form of social security. When the Piemontese Anglosarda company obtained the management of the site, production increased enormously, especially during the two wars, with a pressing demand for materials. In the 1960s, the Montevecchio mines became increasingly expensive to operate and their activity ceased definitively at the beginning of the 1990s. The former miners who worked there are now tourist guides who lead visitors through the mining galleries.