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History of the
Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro

Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro

A history chiselled in the bowels of the Earth

The idea of creating the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro was conceived during a research project. The first excavation campaign at the Rocca San Silvestro castle dates back to 1984, and was carried out by the Teaching of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Siena, in collaboration with the Town Authorities of Campiglia Marittima and numerous European university departments.

Alongside the excavation at the castle, a systematic surface survey was carried out in the area around Campiglia to reconstruct, based on landscape archaeology, the settlement systems in the various historical periods – from Prehistory to modern times – and to understand how the communities used the resources available.

Archaeological research – attracting the interest of natural historians, administrators and territorial protection entities – sparked the idea of the Archaeological Mines Park.

Today, Rocca San Silvestro and its copper and silver mines are a reference point on a European level in rewriting the history of mining in the Middle Ages based on archaeological research.

The original pilot project dates back to 1989 when, commissioned by the Town Authorities of Campiglia Marittima, the general lines of the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro were defined.

The aim was not simply to promote and “museumise” a single monument but an entire historical area, fruit of centuries of mining activities, combining the promotion of local resources with the protection of the environmental and the historical heritage.

A further step was taken towards the development of the project with the purchase of the land and the properties by the Town of Campiglia Marittima.

The construction work began thanks to the European financing under EEC regulation no. 328/88 Resider I.

Una storia da sempre legata all’attività mineraria.

Yesterday's mines, today’s mines

The idea behind the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro, opened in 1996, was to keep the memory alive and tell the story of the mining district of Monti di Campiglia.

The Park, in Val di Cornia, is rich in “sulphide” minerals that formed five million years ago through the complex reaction of magma rising from the depths of the Earth’s crust with limestone. Sulphides contain sulphur linked to metals such as copper, lead, silver, iron and zinc.

The traces of the extraction of metalliferous minerals and of the rocks mark the hills around Campiglia with indelible signs and represent the most visible, and at the same time most fascinating, feature of the area.

Despite the closure of the mines in the 1970s, the quarries, mainly of limestone and feldspar used in the ceramic and glass industries, are still fully operative.

THE ETRUSCAN PERIOD

Archaeological and mining exploration began in the mid 1980s in this area of Val di Cornia. It was a pioneering activity which for the first time ever also involved speleologists who explored the ancient mining tunnels.

Research on the ground, archaeological digs at some mines and speleological exploration allowed the experts to say that, in the Etruscan period, exploration was carried out by drilling narrow and tortuous shafts that followed the path of the metalliferous metals down to depths of more than 100 metres.

The presence of mound tombs and of the ruins of villages in the area suggest that mining activities were controlled by aristocratic groups from the nearby city of Populonia.

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

After a long interruption, the recommencement of mining in the area around Campiglia is linked to the birth and growth of the fortified town of Rocca San Silvestro.

Commissioned by the Della Gherardesca counts and populated by miners and smelters, this town represents one of the most important examples at a European level of a residential village devoted to mining and metal-working.

Other settlements in the hills commissioned by the Della Gherardesca family are Acquaviva and Biserno, of which no traces remain, and the castle of Campiglia Marittima, built on the hill that dominates today’s town.

The mining techniques used by the Medieval miners were not dissimilar to those used by the Etruscans and exploration in that period focussed above all in Valle dei Manienti and in Valle dei Lanzi, close to Rocca San Silvestro.

In the area of the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro, the entrances to around 200 ancient mines dating back to both the Etruscan and Medieval periods have been discovered; some are signposted along the tourist paths.

THE 16TH CENTURY

After Rocca San Silvestro was abandoned in the 14th century, it was Cosimo I De’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who became interested once again in the area and its silver, bringing in specialised miners from Tyrol and Versilia.

The Lanzi, famous for their expertise, erected buildings (Case Caprareccia and Villa Lanzi) and experimented new opencast mining methods.

Technical difficulties in separating the various metals led them to abandon the zone in 1559.

MODERN TIMES

The discoveries of the Enlightenment and the studies of natural historians and geologists in the early 19th century gave new impetus to mining exploration. Mines were opened in the areas where the ancient mining activities had mainly been concentrated.

The extraction technique changed completely thanks to the use of gunpowder and then explosives, able to shatter huge volumes of rock.

The mines were organised in levels with long horizontal tunnels connected by vertical shafts used to transport the minerals and personnel using winches. Evident signs of this more recent mining period can be found in the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro: the entrances to the tunnels, the shafts, the ruins of the railway used to transport the minerals, the early 20th century mine buildings now used for the Park’s services such as the ticket office and the Santa Barbara restaurant, near the Visitor Centre, and the hostel in Valle Lanzi.

 

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