1 reply to this topic

[Tibet Libre]

Which were the largest ancient Chinese mines, both open pit and underground?

Specifically, how deep into the ground were shafts built by Chinese miners?

[Tibet Libre]

I stumbled across some useful information by Walter Scheidel which shows that at an early date we cannot expect too much from gold and silver mining, the two enterprises which provided the greatest incentive for mining and thus the largest mines in the Mediterranean economy:

If anything, precious metal yields in the Han period must have been lower still: gold was mostly derived from placer deposits while underground mining of gold, in so far as it occurred at all, appears to have been rare: few of the known historical gold mines in China were active in that period.

Silver was virtually. unknown in central China prior to the Warring States period. This metal is generally rare in central China and concentrated in the far south, and the earliest evidence for the cupellation of argentiferous sulphide ores comes from the Tang period.

This leaves tin, zinc and particularly copper as main fields of activity of early Chinese underground mining, doesn't it?