The History of the Project
The idea of creating a major route in the most extensive and representative area of the Parco Geominerario Storico Ambientale della Sardegna, the Sulcis Iglesiente Guspinese, rediscovering the ancient mining trails now largely abandoned, was born from the volunteers of the ONLUS Pozzo Sella Association for the Geomineral Park, following the strong participation of local citizens in the excursions organized by the association itself, after having made numerous mining routes accessible again.
The Pozzo Sella Association was founded on November 5th, 2001, in the underground tunnels of the Pozzo Sella shaft at the Monteponi mine, at the conclusion of the campaign that led to the establishment of the Parco Geominerario Storico Ambientale della Sardegna.
The aim of the association is to contribute to the development of the Geomineral Park, to enhance the disused mining areas of Sardinia, to involve young people, and also to identify employment opportunities within the Park itself.
With the Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara, the goal is to preserve the memory of the men who, over centuries and millennia, created and walked the ancient mining trails, while also rediscovering, at a slow pace, the beauty of the region.
Following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the municipalities of Iglesias, Buggerru, Fluminimaggiore, Arbus, Guspini, Gonnosfanadiga, Villacidro, Domusnovas, Musei, Villamassargia, Narcao, Nuxis, Santadi, Piscinas, Giba, Masainas, San Giovanni Suergiu, Sant’Antioco, Carbonia and Gonnesa, the dioceses of Iglesias and Ales Terralba, the provinces of Carbonia Iglesias and Medio Campidano, the Consortium of the Parco Geominerario Storico Ambientale della Sardegna, ANCI SARDEGNA, and the Pozzo Sella Association, a partnership was established for the construction and management of the historical, cultural, environmental, and religious route known as the Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara.
Thanks to the support of the signatories of the protocol and the contribution, passion and commitment of many volunteers, an extraordinary process of research and field surveying began, covering the definition of the itinerary, necessary works for its restoration (still ongoing), guidelines for the definitive signage and installation of provisional ones, the inventory of the heritage found along the route, and everything needed for the organization of the Cammino.
Discovering the Ancient Mining Paths
From the Early Neolithic (around 6000 BC) to the present day, human presence in the south-western part of Sardinia has been marked by a close relationship with rocks and the subsoil. Initially, it was about seeking shelter and burial sites in natural karst caves and specially dug burial structures known as domus de janas; later, especially starting from the Nuragic age (1500–800 BC), it focused on extracting precious mineral resources (ores and metals).
Mining activities developed over the centuries with varying fortunes, leaving deep marks on the landscape. Among these are the road networks, built to provide mobility for people and the transport of minerals from extraction sites to those of processing and use.
These ancient communication routes include:
- Cart tracks and mule paths, still clearly visible today, built as early as the Phoenician-Punic and Roman periods (800 BC–650 AD) for transporting minerals by wagons and pack animals;
- Paved roads and stone bridges built during the Roman era to give access from the coast to mining sites and vice versa;
- Footpaths used by miners to reach the mining sites from their homes;
- Tracks equipped with rails for transporting minerals in wagons pulled by men and animals;
- The routes of old railways built from the second half of the nineteenth century to transport minerals from extraction sites to shipping ports and metallurgical plants;
- Ordinary connecting roads, initially unpaved and later cobbled or asphalted, made to connect mines and mining villages with the towns and cities in the area using various means of transport.
These are road structures often forgotten and left to neglect and ruin, which have been identified and mapped by volunteers from the Pozzo Sella Association with the assistance and support of old maps and firsthand accounts from miners—the living memory of the great historical role played by these routes, which can today be rediscovered thanks to the Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara.
This is not, therefore, a new route, but an ancient network along which since the Early Neolithic many peoples of the Mediterranean basin and the European continent have met and walked together.
History of the Mines
Around the 2nd millennium BC began the exploitation of lead and silver ores found along the surface veins of the Iglesiente, Sarrabus and Nurra areas, where the first smelting workshops have also been identified.
During the Nuragic age, the trade of metal ores and their products with other Mediterranean peoples spread. The famous Nuragic bronzes testify that, around 1000 BC, the local populations had developed solid mining foundations and metallurgical skills.
The exploitation of metal mines continued with the Phoenician-Punic invasion of Sardinia. Traces of excavations from that period persisted until the mid-nineteenth century, before being erased by the digs of modern extractive industry.
In 138 BC, after the victory of Rome over Carthage, Sardinia came under Roman rule. Mines were dug to considerable depths, employing more advanced techniques, as well as slaves and prisoners condemned to forced labor ad metalla (“in the metal mines”). Rome founded mining towns such as Plumbea and Metalla, and established smelting workshops in various parts of the island, especially in the mining areas of Iglesias. With the fall of the Roman Empire, mining activities in Sardinia declined, and for a long period their traces disappeared.
It was only in the twelfth century that mining activity resumed, led by the Pisan count Ugolino della Gherardesca, who turned Villa di Chiesa—today's Iglesias—into a flourishing mining city, also known as the city of silver.
After the end of Ugolino’s rule, Iglesias and its mines came under the control of the Municipality of Pisa in 1302.
Just a few years later, in 1323, Sardinia was conquered by the Aragonese. The Aragonese significantly reduced mining activities and sent miners from Iglesias to open new mines in Catalonia.
In 1720, with Sardinia passing to the Savoy, the mines were assigned to various concessionaires who limited themselves to exploiting only the richest veins, without noticeable results.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the dramatic rise of the industrial era led to strong demand for metals; the largest Italian and European companies started an intense exploitation of Sardinia’s metal mines, soon joined by coal production to support the significant energy needs of metallurgical plants.
The growing demand for argentiferous galena and, starting from 1865, also for zinc ores (calamine), provided a strong impetus for opening the major mines in the Iglesiente and the Guspinese areas (Monteponi, San Giovanni, Nebida, Masua, Ingurtosu, and Montevecchio), around which large mining complexes were built: shafts, tunnels, washing plants, foundries, and the construction of various facilities.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Sardinia supplied Italy with most of its metal requirements, almost all its lead ore (98.7%) and zinc (85%). The century ended with the participation of some Sardinian mining companies in the Paris Universal Exposition, and at the start of the 1900s, Sardinia’s mining industry was firmly established, thanks also to extensive mechanization in all mines.
Mining in the first half of the twentieth century faced severe crises, which, however, were always overcome until the outbreak of the First World War, which brought the closure of European markets and a drastic reduction in mining activities.
Despite the 1929 crisis, the largest mines survived. Moreover, autarchic policies drove an increase in coal extraction, with the opening of the great Serbariu mine and the foundation of the city of Carbonia in the 1930s.
In the 1950s, production picked up again, reaching unprecedented peaks thanks to mining method innovations and the modernization of all facilities.
However, from the mid-1950s, the effects of the loss of competitiveness of Sardinian mining in the European and international markets—those that dictated metal prices—began to take hold.
In the early '60s, several companies ceased operations, leading by the end of the decade to the complete withdrawal of private capital, which forced the State and the Region to intervene more and more, eventually becoming the sole managers of the mines.
Despite major research and modernization efforts, the mining situation continued to worsen, leading to the closure of the last mines in the mid-1990s.
A Park Born from an Underground Struggle
The end of traditional mining activities in Sardinia came after a long period of decline, beginning in the early 1960s and marked by exhausting union struggles.
During this process, the great industrial archaeology heritage of the mines that were gradually decommissioned was entirely neglected, causing loss and destruction of buildings, equipment, and machinery.
With the growing support for the idea of a Geomineral Park as a tool for preserving and enhancing this heritage—an idea proposed in the 1980s by several volunteer associations—there was finally an awareness of the importance of this heritage. Thus, from the second half of the 1990s, the first recovery and protection projects for certain underground and surface structures began.
Crucial to promoting the establishment of the Geomineral Park was the prestigious international recognition by UNESCO, promoted by the national government and the Sardinian Region on the proposal of Ente Minerario Sardo, which in 1998 led to the signing of the Charter of Cagliari (see annex), in which the signatories committed to take the necessary steps for the formal establishment of the Geomineral Park.
However, despite this prestigious international recognition from UNESCO, the creation of the Geomineral Park was a long and difficult process. Its establishment was achieved as a result of a large popular mobilization that supported the peaceful, non-violent struggle lasting an entire year in the underground passages of the Monteponi mine in Iglesias. Faced with parliamentary inaction, regional councilor Pietro Pinna—now president of the Foundation—decided on an extreme form of protest by occupying the Pozzo Sella shaft at Monteponi. Soon afterwards, 500 precarious workers joined the protest, waiting to be given stable jobs with the creation of the Geomineral Park.
The support of a vast and extraordinary popular mobilization was crucial in enabling the occupation of the shaft for a whole year and for the success of the protest.
As a result of that campaign, which began on November 5, 2000, and ended on November 6, 2001, in the presence of the Minister of the Environment at the mine, the following results were achieved:
- The enactment of legislation to establish the Parco Geominerario Storico Ambientale della Sardegna
- The founding decree for the Park itself;
- The allocation of national funds for its management;
- The first significant state funding for the remediation works in the disused mining areas of Sulcis Iglesiente Guspinese;
- The full-time, permanent hiring of 500 workers.
