davetidza
10 years ago
Funny you should mention Rio Tinto. I have on my lounge floor two crates. These contain the archives collected by Lynn Willies when he was excavating and recording Roman and earlier mining at Rio Tinto in the early 1980s. The article is incorrect in that the earliest mining was at least 1000 years before the Romans. The work done by Lynn was part of a much larger project run by Prof. Beno Rothenburg to look at the earliest mining around the Mediterranean.

My aim, and I'm about half way through the process, is to scan as much of this stuff as possible, and hopefully then deposit the original material at the Museum in Rio Tinto. There is, amongst other stuff, hundreds of photos of Rio Tinto and around going back to 1931. When I have completed the process I would hope to deposit the results of my scanning at, amongst other places, Aditnow.
rufenig
10 years ago
As this archive is so important I wonder if BCA or NAMHO could find some funding to have web space on the BCA server?
It is good to see archives being digitised, many organisations just have records and information locked away with very little access. :smartass:
staffordshirechina
10 years ago
It makes Parys Mountain look like a country park!
In 1981, PDMHS were invited to put together a group to investigate the underground remains for Prof. Rothenburg.
We travelled down armed with a winch and headgear to look at numerous 'shafts' that we were told existed there.
It was a classic lesson in wrong terminology. All the 'shafts' went in horizontally from the face of a quarry.....
The winch spent a month basking in the sunshine and then came home unused.
However, it was a great trip, my honeymoon actually, having got married the week before. RTZ paid for the whole trip.
My wife was lucky enough to venture a few metres into one of the small workings, just out of daylight, and find a clay Roman oil lamp on a ledge there. It subsequently dated to 1st century AD.
Morlock
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10 years ago
"davetidza" wrote:

The article is incorrect in that the earliest mining was at least 1000 years before the Romans.

When I have completed the process I would hope to deposit the results of my scanning at, amongst other places, Aditnow.



The Telegraph (IMHO) usually gets something wrong!

The proposed collection of the combined research will be make very interesting reading.



davetidza
10 years ago
"staffordshirechina" wrote:

It makes Parys Mountain look like a country park!
In 1981, PDMHS were invited to put together a group to investigate the underground remains for Prof. Rothenburg.
We travelled down armed with a winch and headgear to look at numerous 'shafts' that we were told existed there.
It was a classic lesson in wrong terminology. All the 'shafts' went in horizontally from the face of a quarry.....
The winch spent a month basking in the sunshine and then came home unused.
However, it was a great trip, my honeymoon actually, having got married the week before. RTZ paid for the whole trip.
My wife was lucky enough to venture a few metres into one of the small workings, just out of daylight, and find a clay Roman oil lamp on a ledge there. It subsequently dated to 1st century AD.



I have here a photograph taken of you and Sue (and Terry, LW, JP and Clare) on your honeymoon. Shall I post a copy??????
davetidza
10 years ago
staffordshirechina
10 years ago
It may be the exact lamp, I don't recognise the photo, but it was that type - no genie left by the time Sue found it though.....

We are both used to the p*ss takes from 'that' photo so go right ahead!
It somehow found it's way into newspapers and to various workplace noticeboards, there were no PC police in those days and you could make comments about fellow workers in fun.
Plenty of folk did.........
davetidza
10 years ago
For your delectation the PDMHS team at Rio Tinto in 1981 including Staffordshirechina and Sue.

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/Photo/Personal-Album-Of_100097/ 

Apologies to those of a delicate disposition.
simonrl
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10 years ago
:offtopic:njust spotted we've passed the 100,000 photos mark!
my orders are to sit here and watch the world go by
davetidza
10 years ago
And a photo worthy of that honour!!
davetidza
10 years ago

Quote:


The proposed collection of the combined research will be make very interesting reading.



There is also stuff from Tinma, Israel (which is reckoned to be the oldest metal mine in the world), from the EBA tin site at Goltepe, in Turkey, and the pre-Moghul mines in Rajasthan.

The newsletters of the IAMS which were the umbrella organisation run by Beno Rothenburg can be found at

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iams/newsletter 
mudbeast
10 years ago
It is certainly worth a trip, if only to see the scale of devastation. The Museum is fascinating, but a lot of the information is in Spanish, who are the main visitors. If you want to ride on the train, check that it is running first.
Morlock
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10 years ago
"davetidza" wrote:


The newsletters of the IAMS which were the umbrella organisation run by Beno Rothenburg can be found at

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iams/newsletter 



A lot of very interesting info, will take a fair bit reading through!:)
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