Sulcis-Iglesiente, an area characterized by mines

Sulcis-Iglesiente is the territory of Sardinia, the most characterized by the presence of disused mines. In the recent years some mines are coming back to the ancient splendour by virtue of the rescue operation aimed that will lead to the construction of the Parco Geominerario (Geo-mines Park) which will be not only for the tourists but even a great opportunity to know an important part of the last century history of this territory, which nowadays has to wrestle with serious economic problems.

Unfortunately unemployment has reached the danger points. In the past foreign peoples like the Phoenicians and of the Punics have been attracted by the richness of the mineral deposits of Sulcis-Iglesiente. Skilful navigators and traders the Phoenicians and of the Punics founded there towns and ports of arrivals for their boats. Then the Romans gave another impulse to the commercial and extractive activities. In the nineteenth century and during the fascist period, it was reached the peak of the progress: Carbonia, for example, was founded in 1938 and owes its name to the extractive activity of coal (in Italian carbone). Villacidro, Fluminimaggiore and Arbus, instead, from rural centres transformed into more important urban concentrations, so as to better meet the requirements of the extractive industry workers.

A leading figure was without doubts Quintino Sella, the economy minister who in 1869 visited in only 15 days every mining sites in Sardinia. He then presented to the Parliament a detailed technical report, thanks to which a significant impulse to the industrial development of the island was given.

The Iglesiente is famous for its mining fields, which have characterized for about a century, the economy of the territory. Phoenicians, Punics and Romans sensed its enormous potential: the geographers of the Imperial Rome talked about the city of Metalla (look at the myth of Metalla), which was never indicated with accuracy on the maps of that time. Afterwards it was the turn of the Pisans to exploit the mining sites. The ruins of mines and buildings, the most tangible examples of the industrial archaeology in Sardinia, are still visible in many sites and they are at the core of the relaunching plan, which has led to the institution of the Parco Geominerario.