How a medieval community shapes a mining landscape ? The case of the Iglesias mountains in Sardinia
Résumé
Sardinia is an island where silver has been mined for several thousand years, from prehistoric times to the end of the 20th century. Extensively exploited between the 13th and 14th centuries, the deposits concentrated in the Palaeozoic mountains of Iglesias made the island one of the main producers of silver in the medieval Mediterranean. Germans were first reported on this Byzantine margin as early as the twelfth century, then the Ligurians and above all the Tuscans settled here before having to contend with the Aragonese conquest in the fourteenth century. A political and economic challenge, the Iglesiente was also a technical crossroads and a social laboratory in which the players, practices and production standards were both enriched and in competition. This vast industrial area, with its landscape marked by the successes and failures of silver mining companies from many different horizons, is the subject of a historical and archaeological investigation. The presentation will offer an initial assessment of the research. The topography of production will first be established, from the location of the mines to that of the charcoal forests and ore-processing workshops; the spatial practices of the workers will then be reconstructed, in particular their movements between workshops and dwellings; the social attractiveness and economic influence of the Iglesiente silver mines will finally be highlighted, through European migration and Mediterranean exports of ingots.