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Las Médulas
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How it came to be
Augustus conquered this region of north-western Spain in 25 BC. In the second half of the 1st century AD the Roman state began mining gold here on a vast scale. Water from mountain streams was brought through at least 100 km of canals, stored in reservoirs and released to bring down whole hillsides, a method Pliny the Elder called ruina montium, the wrecking of mountains.
Pliny, who served as procurator in the region, wrote in his Natural History that the method outdid the achievements of the Giants, and described the danger of collapsing galleries. He put the yield at 20,000 Roman pounds of gold a year, about 6,560 kg.
Mining went on for about two centuries and ended when the Romans withdrew in the early 3rd century. The main pit covers more than 10 square kilometres. Las Médulas was declared a historic monument in 1931 and inscribed in 1997.
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