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Author Topic: Video down Roman copper mine in UK  (Read 2984 times)

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Offline Xenophon

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Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« on: December 02, 2020, 11:13:53 am »
I came across this video today by accident and thought other Forum members might be interested. It shows a chap being taken down a Roman copper mine close to my home town in Cheshire (northwest England).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RNGqsosBLI

The caving club who explored it discovered a hoard of Roman coins which is now in the Manchester museum.

Offline okidoki

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2020, 11:19:35 am »
great info, thank you
All the Best,
Eric
There are no strangers, only friends you do not know yet.

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Offline Bill W4

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2020, 04:54:22 pm »
Great video, thanks.  Can't imagine working in there; I felt claustrophobic just watching it.
I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member!

Offline JBF

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2020, 12:52:20 pm »
Thanks for sharing, beautiful malachite and azurite (green and blue stuff). 

They did it the right way, with a guide.  I knew a guy who explored a truly abandoned mine in Idaho, was overcome by CO and died.  I imagine that if they have horizontal shafts at the bottom there is probably not much of a worry about carbon monoxide.  Still, I am much happier to just enjoy it through the lens of a camera.  Good background for getting some idea of what a mine might be like in ancient Rome.

Offline Xenophon

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2020, 11:16:51 am »
I believe that I have found a page on the Manchester Museum website where there are links to several .wmv files that should be discussions of the coin hoard that is referred to in the video. The links are Alderley Edge 09 and Alderley Edge 15. However, I can't get them to run. If you can, please share the technique!

http://harbour.man.ac.uk/mmcustom/narratives/

Put 'mine' (without the quotes) in the search box and click search. A number of links should then come up, including the 2 Alderley Edge ones.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2020, 04:51:22 pm »
According to the log from my video player, the files are inaccessible.

One of the guys in the video is Alan Garner, OBE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner

The find itself is called the "Pot Shaft hoard", but I've not been able to find a whole lot about it online, other than this:

Quote
In March 1995 a hoard of 564 Roman coins was found at the top of an old mine shaft on the northern side of Engine Vein – a great gash through the sandstone escarpment that defines the landscape of the Edge. The coins were contained in a courseware pot (probably Severn Valley Ware) which had been broken at the top to allow the coins in. Hidden around two metres below the top of the back-filled shaft these bronze coins produced at mainly four mints (Arles, London, Lyons and Trier) between AD 317 and 336. I was fortunate enough o spend a delightful summer in 1995 excavating the coins form the pot in the conservation laboratory at Manchester Museum, and then the summer of 1996 identifying the conserved coins with numismatist Keith Sugden.

https://archaeologytea.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/alderley-edge-roman-mines-and-mysteries/

Apparently the University of Manchester archaelogical unit examined the hoard and produced this report on it:

Nevell, M. D. (1995). The 'Pot Shaft' Hoard, Alderley Edge, Cheshire. Coins in Context: the controlled micro-excavation of a fourth-century Roman coin hoard. Interim Report. University of Manchester Archaeological Unit.

I havn't been able to find the report itself online, but it's included as Chapter 7 of the book "The Archaeology of Alderley Edge", available from AbeBooks.

http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/501453784.pdf

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=plpafe-_-all-_-soft&an=timberlake%20simon&bi=s&sortby=17&tn=archaeology%20alderley%20edge%20survey

Ben

Offline Xenophon

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2020, 06:40:13 am »
That is good 'digging' Congius  +++ It's a shame that the book is so expensive. I will have to have a look in any secondhand book shops in the area to see if I can find a copy more reasonably priced.

Offline SC

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2020, 10:52:05 am »
Awesome video. 

I have been caving and generally don't mind confined spaces but I still had to stop that video a couple of times and look around the room I am sitting in.  Brought back the worst feelings of being underground - but also the best.

The malachite and azurite are incredible and give you new appreciation for what you find deposited on coins...

SC
SC
(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline Anaximander

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #8 on: April 27, 2021, 08:06:46 am »
What a great video of a Roman Britain copper mine! Makes me think of some Time Team episodes.
Find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RNGqsosBLI.

Other videos in this short series on these copper mines, hosted on YouTube, are here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFL_iyj_rZY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0NKcZKb6U




 

Offline Tacitus

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2021, 05:20:25 pm »
Very cool.  thanks

Offline Victor N

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Re: Video down Roman copper mine in UK
« Reply #10 on: May 22, 2021, 09:27:13 am »
There is copper mine open to the public on the Great Orme in North Wales,  we went there a couple of years ago whilst staying nearby, it's very interesting and you are allowed to go underground without a guide, passages are quite low in parts so being rather tall and wearing a hard hat I ended up with backache  :D

Info from the site:-

Uncovered in 1987 during a scheme to landscape an area of the Great Orme, the copper mines discovered represent one of the most astounding archaeological discoveries of recent times. Dating back 4,000 years to the Bronze Age they change our views about the ancient people of Britain and their civilized and structured society 2,000 years before the Roman invasion.

Over the past 28 years mining engineers, cavers and archaeologists have been slowly uncovering more tunnels and large areas of the surface landscape to reveal what is now thought to be the largest prehistoric mine, so far discovered in the world.

 

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