After undergoing an initial coarse crushing inside hydraulic crushers built within the tunnels, the extracted minerals were loaded onto small trains and, thanks to an ingenious system of inclined planes and counterweights necessary to overcome a height difference of 1200 meters, arrived at the Masseria enrichment plant in Val Ridanna.
In the 1500s, at least a thousand people worked in the Monteneve mines, and among those peaks there was also their village. A community complete with a school, chapel, and marching band, established in such a inhospitable place that only chives grew there, and grazing was possible for only a few months a year due to the harsh winter temperatures. It is said that in Monteneve during a particularly cold year, the snow reached seven meters in height.
Anyway, the miners worked underground, which was at least warmer than outside. In fact, the temperature in the tunnel is constantly around 8°, but humidity exceeds 95%!
A hard and dangerous life, that of the miners. Even today, in mines around the world, many accidents are reported caused by collapses and flooding in tunnels. In Monteneve, there was also the risk of avalanches.
When mining work began to become no longer profitable, entrepreneurs and mine owners decided to abandon the extraction areas because “in mining activity, it is more likely that ten become poor than one becomes rich.” But fortunately, abandonment was not permanent and after over eight hundred years of history, the village, tunnels, and plants have become an extraordinary open-air museum, visitable during the summer period, by anyone.
In the ancient Masseria enrichment plant, the managers of the Provincial Mine Museum patiently collected and exhibited the tools and historical relics of the Monteneve mining community, and to allow everyone to experience the thrill of the fascinating and dangerous life in the tunnels, they organized excursions inside the mines.
A fascinating experience worth living, if only to realize how hard the life is for that handful of men whom popular imagination too often associates with the fairy tale of the seven dwarfs. The excursions range from the simplest one, suitable even for children and the elderly, which lasts a couple of hours, to one of as many as eight hours, during which the guides will lead us with sure steps through narrow tunnels and crossings of icy water streams. One just has to be in good athletic shape and above all… not suffer from claustrophobia.
