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Las Médulas
Las Médulas () is a historic gold-mining site near the town of Ponferrada in the comarca of El Bierzo (province of León, Castile and León, Spain). It was the most important gold mine, as well as the largest open-pit gold mine in the entire Roman Empire. Las Médulas Cultural Landscape is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Advanced aerial surveys conducted in 2014 using LIDAR have confirmed the wide extent of the Roman-era works. The spectacular landscape of Las Médulas resulted from the ''ruina montium'' (wrecking of the mountains), a Roman mining technique described by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD. The technique employed was a type of hydraulic mining which involved undermining a mountain with large quantities of water. The water was supplied by interbasin transfer. At least seven long aqueducts tapped the streams of the La Cabrera district (where the rainfall in the mountains is relatively high) at a range of altitudes. The same aqueducts were used to wash the extens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Province Of León
León (, , ; ; ) is a province of northwestern Spain in the northern part of the Region of León and in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. About one quarter of its population of 463,746 (2018) lives in the capital, León. The climate is dry, cold in winter and hot in summer. This creates the perfect environment for wine and all types of cold meats and sausages like the leonese “Morcilla” and the “Cecina”. There are two famous Roman Catholic cathedrals in the province, the main one in León and another in Astorga. The province shares the Picos de Europa National Park (in the Picos de Europa mountain range) with Cantabria and Asturias. It has 211 municipalities. History The province of León was established in 1833 with the new Spanish administrative organisation of regions and provinces to replace former kingdoms. The Leonese Region was composed of the provinces of León, Salamanca and Zamora. Until 1833, the independently administ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Aqueducts
The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities and towns. Aqueduct water supplied public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households; it also supported mining operations, milling, farms, and gardens. Aqueducts moved water through gravity alone, along a slight overall downward gradient within conduits of stone, brick, concrete or lead; the steeper the gradient, the faster the flow. Most conduits were buried beneath the ground and followed the contours of the terrain; obstructing peaks were circumvented or, less often, tunneled through. Where valleys or lowlands intervened, the conduit was carried on bridgework, or its contents fed into high-pressure lead, ceramic, or stone pipes and siphoned across. Most aqueduct systems included sedimentation tanks, which helped to reduce any water-borne debris. Sluices, ''castella aquae'' (distribution tanks) and stopcocks regulated the supply to individual d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire-setting
Fire-setting is a method of traditional mining used most commonly from prehistoric times up to the Middle Ages. Fires were set against a rock face to heat the stone, which was then doused with liquid, causing the stone to fracture by thermal shock. Some experiments have suggested that the water (or any other liquid) did not have a noticeable effect on the rock, but rather helped the miners' progress by quickly cooling down the area after the fire. This technique was best performed in opencast mines where the smoke and fumes could dissipate safely. The technique was very dangerous in underground workings without adequate ventilation. The method became largely redundant with the growth in use of explosives. Although fire-setting was frequently used before modern times, it has been used sporadically since then. In some regions of the world, notably Africa and Eurasia, fire-setting continued to be in use until the 19th and 20th centuries. It was used where rock was too hard to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons National Park covers about a third of south Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia. A point of some discussion is whether the first element of the name should be capitalised: 'south Wales' or 'South Wales'. As the name is a geographical expression rather than a specific area with well-defined borders, style guides such as those of the BBC and ''The Guardian'' use the form 'south Wales'. In a more authoritative style guide, the Welsh Government, in their international gateway website, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolaucothi Gold Mines
The Dolaucothi Gold Mines (; cy, Mwynfeydd Aur Dolaucothi) (), also known as the Ogofau Gold Mine, are ancient Roman surface and underground mines located in the valley of the River Cothi, near Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The gold mines are located within the Dolaucothi Estate which is now owned by the National Trust. They are the only mines for Welsh gold outside those of the Dolgellau gold-belt, and are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. They are also the only known Roman gold mines in Britain, although it does not exclude the likelihood that they exploited other known sources in Devon in South West England, north Wales, Scotland and elsewhere. The site is important for showing advanced Roman technology. Roman mining methods Archaeology suggests that gold extraction on this site may have started sometime in the Bronze Age, possibly by washing of the gold-bearing gravels of the river Cothi, the most elementary type of gold prospecting. Sextus Julius Frontinus was sent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hushing
Hushing is an ancient and historic mining method using a flood or torrent of water to reveal mineral veins. The method was applied in several ways, both in prospecting for ores, and for their exploitation. Mineral veins are often hidden below soil and sub-soil, which must be stripped away to discover the ore veins. A flood of water is very effective in moving soil as well as working the ore deposits when combined with other methods such as fire-setting. Hushing was used during the formation and expansion of the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC on to the end of the empire. It was also widely used later, and apparently survived until modern times where the cost of explosives was prohibitive. It was widely used in the United States, where it was known as "booming". A variant known as hydraulic mining where jets or streams of water are used to break down deposits, especially of alluvial gold and alluvial tin, is commonly used. History The method is well described by Pliny t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Placer Deposit
In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation from a specific source rock during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish word ''placer'', meaning "alluvial sand". Placer mining is an important source of gold, and was the main technique used in the early years of many gold rushes, including the California Gold Rush. Types of placer deposits include alluvium, eluvium, beach placers, aeolian placers and paleo-placers. Placer materials must be both dense and resistant to weathering processes. To accumulate in placers, mineral particles must have a specific gravity above 2.58. Placer environments typically contain black sand, a conspicuous shiny black mixture of iron oxides, mostly magnetite with variable amounts of ilmenite and hematite. Valuable mineral components often occurring with black sands are monazite, rutile, zircon, chromite, wolframite, and cassiterite. Early mining operations were likely a result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canal Romano De Llamas
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers. In most cases, a canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as ''slack water levels'', often just called ''levels''. A canal can be called a ''navigation canal'' when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley. A canal can cut across a drainage divide atop a ridge, generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation. The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Canal. Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naturalis Historia
The ''Natural History'' ( la, Naturalis historia) is a work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethnography, anthropology, human physiolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procurator (Roman)
Procurator (plural: ''Procuratores'') was a title of certain officials (not magistrates) in ancient Rome who were in charge of the financial affairs of a province, or imperial governor of a minor province. Fiscal officers A fiscal procurator (''procurator Augusti'') was the chief financial officer of a province during the Principate (30 BC – AD 284). A fiscal procurator worked alongside the ''legatus Augusti pro praetore'' (imperial governor) of his province but was not subordinate to him, reporting directly to the emperor. The governor headed the civil and judicial administration of the province and was the commander-in-chief of all military units deployed there. The procurator, with his own staff and agents, was in charge of the province's financial affairs, including the following primary responsibilities: *the collection of taxes, especially the land tax (''tributum soli''), poll tax (''tributum capitis''), and the ''portorium'', an imperial duty on the carriage of goods o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alluvial
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater, in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds, are not described as alluvium. Floodplain alluvium can be highly fertile, and supported some of the earliest human civilizations. Definitions The present consensus is that "alluvium" refers to loose sediments of all types deposited by running water in floodplains or in alluvial fans or related landforms. However, the meaning of the term has varied considerably since it was first defined in the French dictionary of Antoine Furetière, posthumously published in 1690. Drawing upon concepts from Roman law, Furetière defined ''alluvion'' (the F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
