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The earliest evidence for mining dates to the beginning of the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 BC.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://greece.greekreporter.com/2016/02/17/newly-discovered-greek-silver-mine-rewrites-history/|title=Newly Discovered Greek Silver Mine Rewrites History - GreekReporter.com|website=greece.greekreporter.com|access-date=20 April 2018}}</ref>
Systematic exploitation of mineral resources seem to have begun in the 6th century BC under [[Peisistratus]]<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/arcm.12839 |title=Other ways to examine the finances behind the birth of Classical Greece|last1=Wood|first1=J.R.|journal=Archaeometry|year=2022}}</ref>.
After the [[battle of Marathon]], [[Themistocles]] persuaded the Athenians to devote the anticipated revenue derived from a major silver vein strike in the mines of Laurion circa 483 BC to expanding the Athenian fleet to 200 [[triremes]], and thus laid the foundation of the Athenian naval power. The mines, which were the property of the state, were usually farmed out for a certain fixed sum and a percentage on the working; [[Slavery in ancient Greece|slave labour]] was exclusively employed. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. As many as 20,000 slaves were employed at the height of the mining. A silver mint ([[Argyrocopeum]]) was at Laurion.
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