▶ mining, quarrying, and salt making
introduction
Th roughout the ancient world people engaged in an endless
quest for resources to make their lives a little more comfort-
able and secure. Food, of course, was at the top of the list,
followed by fuel. But once these material needs had been met,
the ancients turned their attention to extracting resources
out of the earth. Th ey used the materials they found there,
including stone, minerals, and metal ores, to make tools,
buildings, weapons, and decorative objects. Th e result was
the development of civilizations that were far advanced over
those of primitive hunter-gatherer bands.
Th e Stone Age was defi ned by ancient peoples’ ability
to make tools and weapons from stone. Th e earliest humans
used whatever stones lay at hand on the earth’s surface, but
in time they learned to quarry stone. Historians, archaeolo-
gists, and tourists continue to be amazed at the massive stone
construction projects carried out in the ancient Americas,
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia, Greece, and Rome. Using such
stone as limestone, basalt, obsidian, marble, and sandstone,
the ancients were able to quarry massive blocks of stone,
transport them, and raise them into position to create some
of the world’s most breathtaking monuments, such as the
pyramids of Egypt. Meanwhile, they used these and other
stones to make tools, weapons, and artwork. Various min-
erals, too, were used in the production of artwork, jewelry,
and religious artifacts, primarily because these minerals were
soft and workable and because their colors were aesthetically
pleasing.
Th e emergence of metal and metalworking, however,
changed the nature of ancient toolmaking. Th e earliest metal
used extensively was copper. Later, bronze, an alloy of copper
and tin, became the favored metal because it was harder than
copper. While copper and tin are relatively abundant, iron
ore is much more abundant, so following the Bronze Age was
the Iron Age, when iron—and, in time, hardened steel—were
used in toolmaking. Particularly in Europe, where iron ore
was extremely abundant, iron dominated mining in such ar-
eas as modern-day Austria and Switzerland. Precious metals
such as gold and silver were mined to make jewelry and simi-
lar goods. Extracting these metals from the earth required
backbreaking labor, carried out with stone hammers, chisels,
shovels, picks, levers, and other simple tools. Because the na-
ture of the work was so diffi cult, it is likely that slaves, crimi-
nals, and prisoners of war were oft en used.
In addition to stone and metal the ancients needed salt.
Salt is necessary in the diet, but it was also was used in food
preservation. So important was salt that the ancient Romans
oft en paid soldiers with salt—the origin of the modern word
salary—and salt trading was such a profi table business that
some trade routes around the Mediterranean Sea were built
primarily to transport salt. In some cultures, small amounts
of salt could be extracted from ocean water through evapo-
ration. More valuable were salt mines, where large amounts
of salt could be extracted. Salt mining diff ers from rock
mining and stone quarrying primarily because salt dis-
solves in water. It could therefore be allowed to dissolve to
create a brine, which was then pumped out of the mine into
shallow cisterns, where the water would evaporate, leaving
behind the salt.AFRICA
BY JUSTIN CORFIELD
In ancient times peoples all over Africa were involved in min-
ing for precious metals, such as gold and silver, and also for
copper and iron. Th e great trading empire of the Carthag-
inians, based in modern-day Tunisia, was heavily involved
in mining ventures along the North African coastline, and
its expeditions in Africa may have been in search of more
minerals. Certainly some of the Carthaginians’ naval expe-
ditions to the west coast of Africa had this in mind, and it
is known that they secured gold from mines in modern-day
Senegal, though much of the wealth of Carthage came from
silver mines in what is now Spain. Gold was also mined at an
early date in Sofala, in modern-day Mozambique, and Kilwa,
in modern-day Tanzania, but the massive gold and copper
deposits in southern Africa in modern-day Democratic Re-
public of Congo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were not used until
between 800 and 1000 c.e.
Th e fi rst excavations of both copper and iron in Saharan
Africa took place at similar times, according to archaeologi-
cal evidence. Th is is somewhat contradictory, because there
is a relative abundance of ironworkings throughout the con-
tinent while copper deposits are scarce in many parts. Across
the continent, however, the transfer of technology was very
gradual. Th at transfer clearly started in North Africa with the
Egyptians and the Carthaginians, who used minerals before
other African peoples. Th e Egyptians seem to have begun us-
ing iron aft er the Assyrians manufactured it and used it in
battle against them. Th e Carthaginians developed iron from
Phoenician settlers, who regularly used and traded metals.
Gradually the use of iron spread into Nubia, where there were
large deposits of iron ore that was then turned into iron to
satisfy the demand for the metal in Egypt.
Th e technique of smelting iron ore seems to have spread
gradually from Egypt and Nubia. People at two locations, the
southwestern and the central part of the Sahara, were involved
in mining copper from the fi rst half of the fi rst millennium
b.c.e., with iron being smelted in the Sudan at about the same
time. Certainly in the kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Su-
dan, from 650 until 350 b.c.e., the local people were familiar
with working iron. Th is indicates that technology was being
transferred by land contact, but the next area that seems to
have worked iron was in modern-day Zimbabwe, where some
of the settlements show stones cut with the help of iron tools.
It therefore seems likely that the methods of mining iron ore
and smelting it may have come from traders working their
way down the East African coast. Seeming to confi rm this,mining, quarrying, and salt making: Africa 741