Heritage of Mercury. Almadén and Idrija
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How it came to be
Almaden in Spain and Idrija in Slovenia were the two largest mercury mines in the world. Cinnabar has been dug at Almaden since antiquity, probably mostly for vermilion pigment in Roman times. In the Islamic period furnaces for extracting mercury from cinnabar were installed, and the town's name comes from the Arabic for 'the mine'.
In the mid-16th century the amalgamation process, which uses mercury to extract silver from ore, spread in the Americas and demand soared. Most of Almaden's mercury went via Seville to the New World. Because the work was too dangerous to attract labour, convicts were sent from 1566, and 24% of those who served there up to 1593 died before their release. The state took over the mines in 1645.
Mercury was found at Idrija in 1490, and the government of the Habsburgs took over the mine in 1580. When deliveries from Almaden and Huancavelica in Peru faltered, Idrija supplied the silver mines of the Spanish Empire. Almaden stopped mining in 2002, and the two sites were inscribed together in 2012.
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