The Romans were the first to discover the mining deposits as is clear from the numerous traces of extraction work in that era. Quarrying was also done in the Middle Ages.
The most recent industrial quarrying can be traced back to 1848, when king Carlo Alberto granted Giovanni Antonio Sanna permission to continually mine the area. The Montevecchio Company was, therefore, established to quarry argentiferous lead.
The Montevecchio mine stood apart for its use of state-of-the-art tools, which introduced, among other things, the water perforation system which was safer than the dry one. It had a railway line to transport the extracted minerals and a number of processing stations. The miners’ village was built around this, as well as a hospital, the management building and key service buildings.
In the years after the First World War, the company fell into financial difficulty but picked up again under Fascist rule. In 1991, following a long period of decline, the quarry was shut down for good.
The Montevecchio mine is part of the eight sites in Sardinia’s Geological-Mining Park, and there are four accessible itineraries which include the management building and the east-facing worksites.
