After undergoing an initial coarse crushing inside hydraulic crushers built within the tunnels, the extracted minerals were loaded onto small trains and, thanks to a clever system of inclined planes and counterweights necessary to overcome a difference in height of no less than 1200 meters, arrived at the enrichment plant in Masseria, in Val Ridanna.
In the 1500s, there were at least a thousand people working in the Monteneve mines, and among those peaks there was also their village. A community with a school, chapel, and marching band arose in such an inhospitable place where only chives grew 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 in the mine, which at least was warmer than outside. In fact, in the tunnels the temperature is constantly around 8°C, but the humidity exceeds 95%!
A hard and dangerous life, that of the miners. Even today, many accidents caused by collapses and flooding in tunnels are recorded in mines worldwide. At Monteneve, there was also the risk of avalanches.
When mining work started to become no longer profitable, entrepreneurs and deposit owners decided to abandon the extraction areas because “in mining activity it’s more likely that ten become poor than one becomes rich.” But luckily the abandonment was not permanent, and after over eight hundred years of history, the village, tunnels, and facilities have become an extraordinary open-air museum, visitable during the summer period by anyone.
In the ancient enrichment plant of Masseria, the managers of the Provincial Mining Museum have patiently collected and displayed the tools and historical relics of the Monteneve mining community, and to allow everyone to experience the thrill of the fascinating and dangerous life inside the tunnels, they have organized excursions into the mines.
A fascinating experience worth living, if only to realize how hard the life is of that handful of men whom the collective imagination too often associates with the fairy tale of the seven dwarfs. Excursions range from the simplest, also accessible to children and the elderly, lasting a couple of hours, up to one lasting a full eight hours, during which guides will lead us confidently through narrow tunnels and crossings of icy water streams. You just need to be in good athletic shape and above all… not suffer from claustrophobia.
