velopment of extensive mineral mining to the north, in the
cultural area of the Chalchihuites in modern Zacatecas and
Durango. Red hematite and cinnabar and blue turquoise were
mined in the north and traded south across Mesoamerica.
To reach the deposits of conglomerate rock containing these
precious materials, Chalchihuites miners sunk shallow open
pits and deep shaft s into hills and gouged horizontal excava-
tions along hillsides and canyon walls. Both horizontal and
vertical shaft s were dug, splitting off into multiple branches
connected by tunnels and running up to 3,000 feet under-
ground.
Pillars of rock left untouched by the quarrying held up
the roofs of these galleries, which were reinforced as well by
wooden cribbing, and blocks of stone not useful for mineral
extraction were used to reinforce the walls of the tunnels.
Th e spoils were piled up around the mine entrances, creat-
ing mounds as high as 40 feet. Like the Michigan miners
thousands of miles to the north, the Mesoamerican miners
employed simple stone tools—heavy stone hammers to break
the surface and excavate the shaft s, small hammers to extract
minerals from the surrounding rock. Th e dry conditions of
northern Mexico preserved many wooden artifacts left by the
miners, including torches, the handles attached to some of
the stone hammers, and buckets to carry water and rock frag-
ments. Th e bulk of this mining took place between 400 and
600 c.e., the time of Teotihuacán’s fall from political power.
Andean cultures created gold jewelry and other objects
from the second millennium b.c.e. onward. Gold mining
must have been quite extensive, but few traces of it survive in
the archaeological record, since the Spanish conquistadors set
to work immediately exploiting the same gold deposits and
destroying evidence of earlier eff orts. What have survived are
the remains of some copper mines that were used to extract
metal for casting objects and for alloying with tin to create
bronze. At Atacama in northern Chile copper salts preserved
not only the tools used by miners 1,500 years ago but also the
body of one of the miners, killed in a cave-in. Th e tools found
near his naturally mummifi ed remains indicate that the an-
cient Andean miners, like those elsewhere in the Americas,
used large stone hammers as their primary tools, along with
baskets to transport the quarried materials.
See also adornment; architecture; art; building
techniques and materials; death and burial prac-
tices; food and diet; health and disease; household
goods; illumination; inventions; metallurgy; roads
and bridges; sacred sites; seafaring and navigation;
settlement patterns; ships and shipbuilding; slaves
and slavery; storage and preservation; trade and ex-
change; weaponry and armor.
FURTHER READING
T. K. Derry and T. I. Williams, A Short History of Technology: From
the Earliest Times to a.d. 1900, rpt. ed. (New York: Dover,
1993).
J. C. Fant, ed., Roman Marble Quarrying and Trade (Ox ford, U.K.:
British Archaeological Reports, 1988).
Robert James Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, Vol. 7, Ancient
Geology; Ancient Mining and Quarrying; Ancient Mining Tech-
niques (Leiden, Th e Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1997).
J. F. Healy, Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978).
J. W. Humphrey, J. P. Oleson, and A. N. Sherwood, Greek and Ro-
man Technology: A Sourcebook (London and New York: Rout-
ledge, 1998).
M. Korres, Th e Stones of the Parthenon (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty
Museum, 2000).
Alfred Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, rev. ed.
(Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1999).
Susan R. Martin, Wonderful Power: Th e Story of Ancient Copper
Working in the Lake Superior Basin (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne
State University Press, 1999).
James Muhly, “Metallurgy.” In Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of
Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard (London and New York:
Routledge, 1999).
William H. Peck, “Quarrying.” In Encyclopedia of the Archaeology
of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard (London and New York:
Routledge, 1999).
Ian Shaw, “Minerals.” In Th e Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt,
ed. Donald Redford (Cairo: American University Press, 2001).
Ian Shaw, “Quarries and Mines.” In Th e Oxford Encyclopedia of An-
cient Egypt, ed. Donald Redford (Cairo: American University
Press, 2001).
R. Shepherd, Ancient Mining (London: Chapman and Hall, 1993).
R. F. H. Summers, Ancient Mining in Rhodesia and Adjacent Areas
(Salisbury, Rhodesia: Trustees for the National Museums of
Rhodesia, 1969).
Robert K. G. Temple, Th e Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Dis-
covery, and Invention (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).
Dick Teresi, Lost Discoveries: Th e Ancient Roots of Modern Science
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).
Amelia M. Trevelyan, Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual: Metallurgy in
Precontact Eastern North America (Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 2004).
R. E. Wycherly, Th e Stones of Athens (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978).▶ money and coinage
introduction
Th e concept that forms the basis of money is that there is
something of value that can be used to measure how much
goods are worth. In many cultures of the ancient world, at
fi rst cattle were used to measure what goods were worth. A
house, a farm, a cart, or some other good could be measured
in how many cattle it would take to purchase it. Th is did not
mean that cattle were always exchanged whenever someone
bought something, though cattle oft en were exchanged for a
purchase. A bushel of wheat might be worth one half a head
of cattle, but a horse might be worth four head of cattle. If a
person wanted to purchase a horse with wheat, for example,
he would have to pay eight bushels.money and coinage: introduction 751