It was otherwise with the more western gulf. There, certainly, from time to time, the Phoenicians launched their fleets, and carried on a commerce which was scarcely less lucrative because they had to allow the nations whose ports they used a participation in its profits. It is not impossible that, occasionally, the Egyptians allowed them to build ships in some one or more of their Red Sea ports, and to make such port or ports the head-quarters of a trade which may have proceeded beyond the Straits of Babelmandeb and possibly have reached Zanzibar and Ceylon. At any rate, we know that, in the time of Solomon, two harbours upon the Red Sea were open to them—viz. Eloth and Ezion-Geber—both places situated in the inner recess of the Elanitic Gulf, or Gulf of Akaba, the more eastern of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides. David’s conquest of Edom had put these ports into the possession of the Israelites, and the friendship between Hiram and Solomon had given the Phoenicians free access to them. It was the ambition of Solomon to make the Israelites a nautical people, and to participate in the advantages which he perceived to have accrued to Phoenicia from her commercial enterprise. Besides sharing with the Phoenicians in the trade of the Mediterranean,[9115] he constructed with their help a fleet at Ezion-Geber upon the Red Sea,[9116] and the two allies conjointly made voyages to the region, or country, called Ophir, for the purpose of procuring precious stones, gold, and almug-wood.[9117] Ophir is, properly speaking, a portion of Arabia,[9118] and Arabia was famous for its production of gold,[9119] and also for its precious stones.[9120] Whether it likewise produced almug-trees is doubtful;[9121] and it is quite possible that the joint fleet went further than Ophir proper, and obtained the “almug-wood” from the east coast of Africa, or from India. The Somauli country might have been as easily reached as South-eastern Arabia, and if India is considerably more remote, yet there was nothing to prevent the Phoenicians from finding their way to it.[9122] We have, however, no direct evidence that their commerce in the Indian Ocean ever took them further than the Arabian coast, about E. Long. 55º.
CHAPTER X—MINING
Surface gathering of metals, anterior to mining—Earliest
known mining operations—Earliest Phoenician mining in
Phoenicia Proper—Mines of Cyprus—Phoenician mining in
Thasos and Thrace—in Sardinia—in Spain—Extent of the
metallic treasures there—Phoenician methods not unlike
those of the present day—Use of shafts, adits, and
galleries—Roof of mines propped or arched—Ores crushed,
pounded, and washed—Use of quicksilver unknown—Mines
worked by slave labour.
The most precious and useful of the metals lie, in many places, so near the earth’s surface that, in the earliest times, mining is unneeded and therefore unpractised. We are told that in Spain silver was first discovered in consequence of a great fire, which consumed all the forests wherewith the mountains were clothed, and lasted many days; at the end of which time the surface of the soil was found to be intersected by streams of silver from the melting of the superficial silver ore through the intense heat of the conflagration. The natives did not know what to do with the metal, so they bartered it away to the Phoenician traders, who already frequented their country, in return for some wares of very moderate value.[101] Whether this tale be true or no, it is certain that even at the present day, in what are called “new countries,” valuable metals often show themselves on the surface of the soil, either in the form of metalliferous earths, or of rocks which shine with spangles of a metallic character, or occasionally, though rarely, of actual masses of pure ore, sometimes encrusted with an oxide, sometimes bare, bright, and unmistakable. In modern times, whenever there is a rush into any gold region—whether California, or Australia, or South Africa—the early yield is from the surface. The first comers scratch the ground with a knife or with a pick-axe, and are rewarded by discovering “nuggets” of greater or less dimensions; the next flight of gold-finders search the beds of the streams; and it is not until the supply from these two sources begins to fail that mining, in the proper sense of the term, is attempted.
The earliest mining operations, whereof we have any record, are those conducted by the Egyptian kings of the fourth, fifth and twelfth dynasties, in the Sinaitic region. At two places in the mountains between Suez and Mount Sinai, now known as the Wady Magharah and Sarabit-el-Khadim, copper was extracted from the bosom of the earth by means of shafts laboriously excavated in the rocks, under the auspices of these early Pharaohs.[102] Hence at the time of the Exodus the process of mining was familiar to the Hebrews, who could thus fully appreciate the promise,[103] that they were about to be given “a good land”—“a land whose stones were iron, and out of whose hills they might dig brass.” The Phoenicians, probably, derived their first knowledge of mining from their communications with the Egyptians, and no doubt first practised the art within the limits of their own territory—in Lebanon, Casius, and Bargylus. The mineral stores of these regions were, however, but scanty, and included none of the more important metals, excepting iron. The Phoenicians were thus very early in their history driven afield for the supply of their needs, and among the principal causes of their first voyages of discovery must be placed the desire of finding and occupying regions which contained the metallic treasures wherein their own proper country was deficient.
It is probable that they first commenced mining operations on a large scale in Cyprus. Here, according to Pliny,[104] copper was first discovered; and though this may be a fable, yet here certainly it was found in great abundance at a very early time, and was worked to such an extent, that the Greeks knew copper, as distinct from bronze, by no other name than that of {khalkos Kuprios}, whence the Roman Æs Cyprium, and our own name for the metal. The principal mines were in the southern mountain range, near Tamasus,[105] but there were others also at Amathus, Soli, and Curium.[106] Some of the old workings have been noticed by modern travellers, particularly near Soli and Tamasus,[107] but they have neither been described anciently nor examined scientifically in modern times. The ore from which the metal was extracted is called chalcitis by Pliny,[108] and may have been the “chalcocite” of our present metallurgical science, which is a sulphide containing very nearly eighty per cent. of copper. The brief account which Strabo gives of the mines of Tamasus shows that the ore was smelted in furnaces which were heated by wood fires. We gather also from Strabo that Tamasus had silver mines.
That the Phoenicians conducted mining operations in Thasos we know from Herodotus,[109] and from other writers of repute[1010] we learn that they extended these operations to the mainland opposite. Herodotus had himself visited Thasos, and tells us that the mines were on the eastern coast of the island, between two places which he calls respectively Ænyra and Coenyra. The metal sought was gold, and in their quest of it the Phoenicians had, he says, turned an entire mountain topsy-turvy. Here again no modern researches seem to have been made, and nothing more is known than that at present the natives obtain no gold from their soil, do not seek for it, and are even ignorant that their island was ever a gold-producing region.[1011] The case is almost the same on the opposite coast, where in ancient times very rich mines both of gold and silver abounded,[1012] which the Phoenicians are said to have worked, but where at the present day mining enterprise is almost at a standstill, and only a very small quantity of silver is produced.[1013]
Sardinia can scarcely have been occupied by the Phoenicians for anything but its metals. The southern and south-western parts of the island, where they made their settlements, were rich in copper and lead; and the position of the cities seems to indicate the intention to appropriate these metals. In the vicinity of the lead mines are enormous heaps of scoriæ, mounting up apparently to a very remote era.[1014] The scoriæ are not so numerous in the vicinity of the copper mines, but “pigs” of copper have been found in the island, unlike any of the Roman period, which are perhaps Phoenician, and furnish specimens of the castings into which the metal was run, after it had been fused and to some extent refined. The weight of the pigs is from twenty-eight to thirty-seven kilogrammes.[1015] Pigs of lead have also been found, but they are less frequent.
But all the other mining operations of the Phoenicians were insignificant compared with those of which the theatre was Spain. Spain was the Peru of the ancient world, and surpassed its modern rival, in that it produced not only gold and silver, but also copper, iron, tin, and lead. Of these metals gold was the least abundant. It was found, however, as gold dust in the bed of the Tagus;[1016] and there were mines of it in Gallicia,[1017] in the Asturias, and elsewhere. There was always some silver mixed with it, but in one of the Gallician mines the proportion was less than three per cent. Elsewhere the proportion reached to ten or even twelve and a half per cent.; and, as there was no known mode of clearing the gold from it, the produce of the Gallician mine was in high esteem and greatly preferred to that of any other. Silver was yielded in very large quantities. “Spain,” says Diodorus Siculus,[1018] “has the best and most plentiful silver from mines of all the world.” “The Spanish silver,” says Pliny,[1019] “is the best.” When the Phoenicians first visited Spain, they found the metal held in no esteem at all by the natives. It was the common material of the cheapest drinking vessels, and was readily parted with for almost anything that the merchants chose to offer. Much of it was superficial, but the veins were found to run to a great depth; and the discovery of one vein was a sure index of the near vicinity of more.[1020] The out-put of the Spanish silver mines during the Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman periods was enormous, and cannot be calculated; nor has the supply even yet failed altogether. The iron and copper of Spain are also said to have been exceedingly abundant in ancient times,[1021] though, owing to the inferior value of the metals, and to their wider distribution, but little is recorded with regard to them. Its tin and lead, on the other hand, as being metals found in comparatively few localities, receive not infrequent mention. The Spanish tin, according to Posidonius, did not crop out upon the surface,[1022] but had to be obtained by mining. It was produced in some considerable quantity in the country of the Artabri, to the north of Lusitania,[1023] as well as in Lusitania itself, and in Gallicia;[1024] but was found chiefly in small particles intermixed with a dark sandy earth. Lead was yielded in greater abundance; it was found in Cantabria, in Bætica, and many other places.[1025] Much of it was mixed with silver, and was obtained in the course of the operations by means of which silver was smelted and refined.[1026] The mixed metal was called galena.[1027] Lead, however, was also found, either absolutely pure,[1028] or so nearly so that the alloy was inappreciable, and was exported in large quantities, both by the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, and also by the Romans. It was believed that the metal had a power of growth and reproduction, so that if a mine was deserted for a while and then re-opened, it was sure to be found more productive than it was previously.[1029] The fact seems to be simply that the supply is inexhaustible, since even now Spain furnishes more than half the lead that is consumed by the rest of Europe. Besides the ordinary metals, Spain was capable of yielding an abundance of quicksilver;[1030] but this metal seems not to have attracted the attention of the Phoenicians, who had no use for it.