ABSTRACT
Metals made possible many of the technological achievements of the Mediterranean Bronze Age cultures, but the early exhaustion of surface deposits of easily smelted oxide and carbonate necessitated the use of deep shafts and hard-rock mining by the Greeks and Romans. Prospecting remained empirical in character, but advances were made to identify the surface indications of deposits and the sequence of geological strata. Slaves and criminals were often employed, since excavation of open-cast pits and mine shafts was exceedingly difficult and dangerous; problems of ventilation and drainage were only partly solved by available techniques, and underground lighting remained primitive. Nevertheless, enormous quantities of metals and ores (gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin) were recovered.
Like mining, quarrying was largely a technology developed by Bronze Age and later cultures, once the appearance of metal tools facilitated stoneworking and the evolution of stratified societies fostered the development of stone architecture. Since most quarries were open pits, prospecting, ventilation, drainage, and lighting presented fewer difficulties than in mining. The bipod crane and the development of the compound pulley in the eighth or seventh century bc made it relatively easy to lift heavy blocks, although land transport with sledges or heavy wagons pulled by oxen and mules remained slow, difficult, and expensive. Long-distance transport was carried out in specially reinforced ships, and the most heavily worked quarries were those located near a city, close to the place of construction, or near the sea, close to transport facilities. Marble and a few other ornamental stones were the only kinds traded in large blocks. As with mines, work in a quarry was dangerous and harsh in antiquity, and few advances in the tools or techniques were made until the nineteenth century.
