The history of the project
The idea of creating a major trail in the largest and most representative area of Sardinia's Historical and Environmental Geomining Park, the Sulcis Iglesiente Guspinese, rediscovering ancient mining trails, now largely abandoned, was born from volunteers from the Pozzo Sella Per il Parco Geominerario non-profit organization following the large turnout of citizens on excursions organized by the association after having made numerous mining trails accessible.
The Sella Well Association was founded on November 5, 2001, in the basement of the Sella Well of the Monteponi mine, at the end of the struggle that led to the establishment of the Historical Environmental Geomining Park of Sardinia.
The association's goal is to contribute to the development of the Geominerario Park, the valorization of Sardinia's abandoned mining areas, the involvement of young people, and the identification of job opportunities within the Park itself.
The Santa Barbara Mining Trail aims to preserve the memory of the men who, over the centuries and millennia, built and walked the ancient mining trails, enjoying the pleasure of slowly rediscovering the beauty of the area.
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 Geo-Mining Historical and Environmental Park of Sardinia, ANCI SARDEGNA, and the Pozzo Sella Association, a partnership has been established for the development and management of the historical, cultural, environmental, and religious itinerary known as the " Santa Barbara Mining Trail."
Thanks to the support of the protocol's signatories and the contribution, passion, and commitment of many volunteers, an extraordinary research and field survey project has begun. This included defining the route, the necessary interventions for its restoration (still ongoing), guidelines for permanent signage and the installation of temporary ones, an inventory of the heritage along the route, and everything else needed to organize a Camino.
Discovering the ancient mining trails
From the early Neolithic (around 6000 BC) to the present day , human presence in southwestern Sardinia has been characterized by an intense relationship with the rocks and the subsoil . First, to find shelter and burial in natural karst cavities and in domus de janas , specially dug burial structures; later, particularly from the Nuragic age (1500-800 BC), to extract precious mineral resources (minerals and metals).
Mining activity has developed over the centuries with alternating fortunes, leaving profound traces in the territory. Among these is the road network , built to ensure the mobility of people and the transport of minerals from the extraction site to the processing and use site.
Such ancient communication routes include:
- the still clearly visible dirt roads and mule tracks built since the Phoenician-Punic and Roman periods (800 BC - 650 AD) for the transport of minerals with carts and pack animals;
- the paved roads and stone bridges built in Roman times to access the mining sites from the coast and vice versa;
- the paths taken by miners to reach the mine sites from their homes;
- the tracks equipped with rails for the transport of minerals with wagons pulled by men and animals;
- the routes of the old railways built starting from the second half of the nineteenth century to transport minerals from the extraction sites to the ports of embarkation and to the metallurgical plants;
- the normal connecting roads , first dirt and then paved and asphalted, built to connect the mines and mining villages with the towns and cities in the area through various means of transport.
These are road structures that are often forgotten and abandoned to neglect and destruction, which have been identified and mapped by volunteers from the Pozzo Sella Association with the help and support of old cartography and the direct testimonies of miners, a living memory of the important function played by these roads historically, and which can now be rediscovered thanks to the Santa Barbara Mining Trail .
Therefore, we are not proposing a new itinerary, but rather ancient paths along which, since the early Neolithic, numerous populations of the Mediterranean basin and the European continent have met and traveled together.
History of the mines
The exploitation of lead and silver minerals began around the 2nd millennium BC, excavated along the superficial veins of the Iglesiente , Sarrabus and Nurra , where the first smelting workshops were also identified.
During the Nuragic Age, trade in metal ores and their products spread with other Mediterranean peoples . As evidenced by the famous Nuragic bronzes, by around 1000 BC, the local populations had developed a solid mining foundation and metallurgical skills.
The exploitation of metal mines continued with the Phoenician-Punic invasion of Sardinia. Traces of the period's excavations persisted until the mid-19th century, before being obliterated by the excavations of the modern mining industry.
In 138 BC, with Rome 's victory over Carthage , Sardinia came under Roman rule. Mines were dug to considerable depths, using more advanced techniques, and slaves and prisoners were condemned to forced labor ad metalla ("in the metal mines"). Rome founded mining towns such as Plumbea and Metalla , and began building smelting shops in various areas of the island, but especially in the metal-bearing areas of Iglesias. With the fall of the Roman Empire, mining activity in Sardinia declined and for a long time all trace of it was lost.
It was only in the 12th century that the exploitation of the mines was resumed by the Pisan count Ugolino della Gherardesca , who made Villa di Chiesa , today's Iglesias , a flourishing mining town, also called the city of silver.
After the end of Ugolino's lordship, Iglesias and its mines passed, in 1302, under the dominion of the Municipality of Pisa .
A few years later, in 1323, Sardinia was conquered by the Aragonese . The Aragonese significantly reduced mining activity and used the Iglesiente miners to open new mines in Catalonia .
In 1720, with the passage of Sardinia to the Savoy family , the mines were entrusted to various concessionaires who limited themselves to exploiting the richest veins without, however, achieving appreciable results.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the rapid arrival of the industrial era generated a strong demand for metals; the largest Italian and European companies began intensive exploitation of Sardinian metal mines , which were soon joined by coal production , to support the high energy consumption required by metallurgical plants.
The growing demand for silver-bearing galena and, starting from 1865, also for zinc minerals (calaminari), gave a strong impetus to the opening of the large mines of the Iglesiente and Guspinese areas (Monteponi, San Giovanni, Nebida, Masua, Ingurtosu and Montevecchio) around which large mining plants were built: excavation of wells , tunnels , washeries , foundries and construction of various services.
At the end of the 19th century, Sardinia supplied Italy with most of its metals, almost all of its lead (98.7%) and zinc (85%) ores. The century ended with the participation of several Sardinian mining companies in the Paris World's Fair , and by the beginning of the 20th century, the Sardinian mining industry was on a solid foundation, thanks in part to the extensive mechanization efforts undertaken in all mines.
The mining industry in the first half of the 20th century experienced some moments of serious difficulty, which however were always overcome until the outbreak of the First World War , which led to the closure of European markets and a drastic reduction in mining work.
Despite the 1929 crisis, the large mines still persisted. Furthermore, autarkic policies encouraged increased coal extraction, with the opening of the large Serbariu mine and the founding of the town of Carbonia in the 1930s.
In the 1950s, production recovered, reaching unprecedented heights thanks to innovation in cultivation methods and the modernization of all the facilities.
But already by the mid-1950s, the effects of the loss of competitiveness of the Sardinian mining industry with respect to the European and international markets, to which the price of metals was tied, began to be felt.
In the early 1960s, several companies ceased operations , leading to the definitive withdrawal of private capital by the end of the decade, forcing the State and the Region to intervene more and more massively, until they became the sole managers of the mines.
Despite major research and modernization efforts in the mining sector, the situation continued to worsen, leading to the closure of the last mines in the mid-1990s.
A park born from an underground struggle
The cessation of traditional mining activity in Sardinia came after a long agony, which began in the early 1960s and was characterised by exhausting union struggles.
In this process, the great heritage of industrial archaeology of the mines that were progressively decommissioned was completely neglected , causing the loss and destruction of structures , equipment and machinery .
With the emergence of the idea of a Geomineral Park as a tool for the conservation and enhancement of this heritage , proposed in the 1980s by several volunteer associations, the importance of this heritage was finally recognized; and so, starting in the second half of the 1990s, the first restoration and protection interventions on some underground and surface structures began.
Of significant importance in promoting the establishment of the Geomining Park was the prestigious international recognition by UNESCO promoted by the national government and the Sardinian Region at the proposal of the Sardinian Mining Authority, which led in 1998 to the signing of the Cagliari Charter (see attachment), with which the signatories committed to adopting the necessary measures for the formal establishment of the Geomining Park.
However, despite the prestigious international recognition from UNESCO , the creation of the Geomining Park was extremely difficult. Its establishment followed a large-scale popular mobilization that supported the year-long peaceful and nonviolent struggle underground at the Monteponi mine in Iglesias. Faced with parliamentary inertia, then-regional councilor Pietro Pinna, now president of the Foundation, decided to undertake an extreme form of protest by occupying the Sella Shaft of the Monteponi mine. Immediately afterward, 500 temporary workers joined the protest, waiting to be made permanent with the creation of the Geomining Park.
The support of a large and extraordinary popular mobilization was decisive in allowing us to resist in the well for an entire year and for the success of the protest .
Following that struggle, which began on November 5, 2000 and concluded on November 6, 2001 in the presence of the Minister of the Environment at the mine, the following was achieved:
- the law for the establishment of the Historical Environmental Geomineral Park of Sardinia
- the decree establishing the Park itself;
- the allocation of national funds for its management;
- the first significant financial resources from the State to start the reclamation works of the abandoned mining areas of Sulcis Iglesiente Guspinese;
- the full-time, permanent hiring of 500 workers .
