and a number of 1st millennium BC iron ore smelting sites have been uncovered. The process used in those days would almost certainly have led to the production of wrought iron and later, as Chinese technology advanced and higher smelting temperatures were attained, cast iron. The source of the iron ore would have been a combination of meteoritic iron and surface ores. The essential requirement was that the iron ore deposit would have been relatively high grade, as there tended to be a considerable loss of dross metal in the early smelting process. In the 1st century BC ironworks unearthed in Henan Province also pointed to coal mining activity in the region, with coal being used in the works but probably not in the smelting process, as coal only supplanted charcoal in the process in 7th century AD.
The progress made in iron working in China over the centuries allowed local engineers to develop sophisticated techniques in a variety of areas, one example being the building of bridges. To begin with the first bridges were more like pontoons than bridges as we understand them, and this meant that crossings were of rivers rather than aerial gaps. It is, however, thought that around 600 AD Chinese engineers may have built the first cast iron chain suspension bridge in Yunnan province, although some historians think that the first iron chain suspension bridge could well have been constructed even earlier.
The table summarises some of the more significant Chinese metal developments in the ancient period.
Significant historical Chinese metal developments
5. Early Mining in India
One of the interesting aspects of mining in India is the relatively early use of zinc, which meant that brass for coins, sculptures, images and other objects was being used quite widely before other ancient societies such as China and Greece made brass. Indeed, some Indian brass objects found have been dated as early as the 3rd century BC. One of the best-preserved zinc mining sites in India is Zawar in Rajasthan in Western India. There, shafts were found down to a depth of 300 feet and wooden residues indicate the use of ladders, supports and drainage conduits in the operations. The workings are thought to date back to the latter half of the 1st millennium BC and were linked to an advanced system of zinc smelting involving retorts and furnaces which produced a zinc vapour, which was then collected in vessels and condensed, leaving behind the contained zinc metal.
India’s historic mining and metallurgical expertise in copper, tin and thus bronze goes back even further to at least the 4th millennium BC. The ancient workings of Khetri and Rajpura-Dariba in the north west of the country demonstrate that sophisticated copper mining and smelting operations existed in ancient India. It is believed though that the tin used to make bronze did not come from the region itself but possibly from the centre of the country, or perhaps was imported from the rich tin areas of Malaya or Indonesia. It is thought that Indian expertise in copper may well have been introduced from Persia, and in support of this theory many copper and bronze articles have been found in the east of modern day Iran, in the north west of India and some in the south west of Afghanistan. Indeed, archaeological evidence indicates that there was a metal working site at Mundigak in Afghanistan and that techniques developed there, or perhaps developed further west, travelled down to the Indus Valley during the 3rd millennium BC.
The earliest bronze artefacts in India were found in the north west of the country in the Indus River Valley; these were largely weapons like knives and spears but also tools like axes and domestic items such as mirrors. In this we can see that technological progress was slow as the Bronze Age spread round the known world, so for thousands of years bronze technology was aimed primarily at manufacturing equipment for war. The artefacts are the clearest sign of a copper mining, alloying and smelting industry in this part of India, with remains of the ancient operations rather limited after so many centuries. It is therefore difficult to ascertain the likely levels of production of copper, but it would be a reasonable guess that annual output would have been in the hundreds of tonnes rather than anything more. Certainly in recent times a small-scale basic copper mining industry has operated in the Indus Valley area producing modest amounts of copper and this may well mirror the scale of the ancient mining. So the presence of small-scale copper mining today provides a link with much earlier operations in the Indus Valley.
Gold mining in the state of Karnataka, south west India, was carried out around the end of the 1st century BC where evidence of fire setting techniques from that era has been found at the operating Hutti gold mine, as well as evidence of charcoal for smelting and also gold residues. At about the same time – the end of the 1st century BC – a gold mine was established at Uti, near to Hutti. Around the 3rd century AD a number of small pits were dug to extract surface gold in Karnataka at Kolar and by the 9th century AD a larger operation had been developed there. Also in Karnataka state, the now-closed Ingaldhal copper mine in the Chitradurga district was first worked around the time of the establishment of the Hutti gold mine.
6. Mining in Ancient Egypt
The very essence of modern Egypt to outsiders and visitors is its fabulous ancient cities and monuments, and the treasures that were found in the country’s most famous ancient structures, the Pyramids. These great antiquities have fascinated people for centuries and have led to much controversy as many of the priceless artefacts uncovered by archaeological expeditions, often foreign, have found their way outside Egypt. There are a number of different points of view about the history of this traffic in antiquities which, thought provoking though they are, lie well outside the scope of this particular history. However, it is beyond doubt that these great treasures would not have come into existence if the ancient Egyptians had not developed mining skills.
As we noted earlier, evidence suggests mining was first carried out in Egypt at least 40,000 years ago and possibly before that. In the Stone Age the targets for ancient miners were primarily materials such as flint for tool and weapon making, and other basic stone. Although it was the Bronze Age that heralded the rapid spread of the use of metals, the mining of copper, gold and other minerals in Egypt probably occurred long before that, as there is evidence of copper mines at Bir Nasib in the southern Sinai and turquoise mines at nearby Serabit el-Khadim.
The latter mines, developed first around 3500 BC as the Bronze Age was dawning, consisted of large hollowed-out galleries where the miners carved out turquoise for shipping to Egypt, to be made into jewellery and pigments for paint. The copper mines of the Sinai were established considerably earlier than the turquoise mines and there is archaeological evidence of copper smelting in the 6th millennium BC, probably using native copper, and copper mining 3,000 years later in the time of the Old Pharaohs. The mines lasted for centuries and disgorged large quantities of minerals. Indeed in the 19th century the British, who occupied Egypt for several decades, attempted to re-open the mines of Serabit.
Stone quarries
In Ancient Egypt there were also many stone quarries littered around the eastern and western deserts and also down in the south at Aswan. The latter were critical in the construction of the temples and tombs in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, one of the world’s great tourist attractions and historical sites, and also the temples at Abu Simbel to the south near the Sudan border. The granite quarried at Aswan was exported by the Romans, when they occupied Egypt, to many Mediterranean sites, and indeed granite mining around Aswan continues to this day. The great Pyramid of Giza just outside Cairo used granite transported 500 miles from Aswan, demonstrating that not only were the ancient Egyptians able to mine and cut stone but also had the means to transport the mined materials large distances. The use of slaves for mining and hauling would have helped make this economically viable.
Other varieties of stone were also extensively mined by the ancient Egyptians. Although granite was a first class basic building block many of the temples required more ornate and beautiful stone for facing and other uses. Mines at Tura and Ma’sara, south of Cairo, provided high quality white limestone used for facing the tombs of the grandest occupants. At Tura the limestone was found at depth and could not be mined from the surface, so the ancient miners tunnelled underground and then cut the limestone out in large blocks, the limestone left behind acting