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A glimpse into Bronze Age copper mining

11th October 2013

By: Martin Zhuwakinyu

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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On a recent trip to the UK, a few very dear and long-suffering family members decided to indulge my obsessive interest in mining history by taking me on a visit to two of Britain’s flagship mining tourist attractions.

The first was the extraordinary Bronze Age mining complex known as the Great Orme ancient copper mine, located a mile or so north-west of the Victorian seaside town of Llandudno, on the North Wales coastline. The mine draws its name from the Great Orme headland, a spectacular great mass of layered limestone that juts upwards and outwards into the Irish Sea, on which it is situated. (Interestingly, the name ‘Orme’ is said to have been derived from the old Nourse word for sea serpent, which the headland is said to resemble.)

The popular tourist attraction, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, is an exceptionally important heritage site, not only because it is one of the oldest mining operations in Britain, dating back more than 3 500 years, but was also the world’s largest copper mining complex of the Bronze Age.

For many millennia, owing to the Bronze Age miners’ practice of backfilling tunnels and shafts where the veins of copper had pinched out, the ancient mining complex was completely buried from the view of more modern inhabitants. Although the Great Orme was extensively mined for copper during the nineteenth century (the head- land has been host to four very rich veins of copper, all of which have now been mined out) and miners often reported that they had broken through to earlier workings, the age and significance of the operations were not even partially understood.

It was only in 1987, during a government-funded survey for a reclamation and car park scheme, that the near-surface area of the ancient complex was uncovered and the significance of the site began to be revealed.

Since then, continuous privately funded archaeological programmes have been undertaken to excavate the mining complex. Such intensive investigations have revealed that the site was first worked by toolmaking Bronze-Age miners as early as 1800 BCE. Such miners would have been attracted to the site owing to the relative ease with which the copper could be extracted. Because the limestone encasing the copper veins had been sub- jected to dolomisation, the rock had become considerably soft and brittle and would have been easily scratched or dug away.

From the numerous tools and fragments that have been uncovered, it is evident that three methods of mining was used by the Bronze Age people. The simplest employed bone tools, which ranged from the leg and rib bones of cattle, sheep and pigs to the more extravagant antler picks. More than 8 000 such tools have been uncovered, many of them stained green by the copper ores.

Stone hammers, which were really just beach pebbles with signs of heavy hammering on one end, were another tool used, and more than 900 of these have been found.

In addition, fire setting was commonly employed as a way of loosening the rock. Fires were built up against the face and the effect so weakened the rock that it was possible to mine it. Evidence of fire setting has been discovered up to 200 feet down in the tunnels, suggesting that there must have been a strong system of ventilation.

Despite such primitive methods, archaeologists estimate that some 1 700 t of pure copper was extracted from the rich complex during the Bronze Age – in an age dominated by the manufacture of bronze implements, the Great Orme mine produced enough copper to forge more than ten-million bronze axes.

Significantly, the continuous excavations have removed more than 100 000 t of mining waste and uncovered well over 7 km of Bronze Age underground tunnels. It is believed that a further 8 km to 10 km of passage remains to be discovered, surveyed and excavated. It is also thought that the mines extend to 70 m in depth and sprawl a considerable 240 m × 130 m into the hillside.

Although archaeologists have excavated down nine layers, paying visitors can only walk down and access the third level of the mine.

Walking through the mine, one is struck by the labyrinth nature of the mine, with its plethora of tunnels and shafts veering off in every direction. Some offshoots are so tiny, measuring just centimetres wide, that it is clear they could only have been worked by the smallest of children. But even the tunnels that constitute the official 200-m-long underground tour are quite compact. The tunnels vary in width, the narrowest being just 5 cm in width and the lowest roof 145 cm high. Indeed, those not overly fond of confined spaces would find the attraction somewhat hair raising.

It is not often that modern civilisation is provided with such a clear and certain glimpse into the distant past. The Great Orme ancient copper mine is certainly a bucket-list attraction for those interested in archaeology, Bronze Age civilisations and mining, in general.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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