Gold hidden in the Carpathians: over 2,000 tons mined in the last two millennia. Where were the largest deposits
More than 2,000 tons of gold have been extracted from the territory of Romania in the last two and a half millennia, historical research shows. The last gold mines ceased operations in the 2000s, but in recent years valuable new gold and silver deposits have been outlined in the Apuseni Mountains.
The former mine from Roșia Montană. Photo: Daniel Guță. TRUTH
In Romania, over 140 deposits and occurrences where gold is the main useful metal and over 90 perimeters where it appears as a secondary product are known.
The most important deposits are related to Neogene volcanism in the south of the Apuseni Mountains and in the Eastern Carpathians, especially in the Baia Mare district, shows the research published by geologists Gheorghe C. Popescu, Gheorghe Ilinca, Antonela Neacșu and Grigore Verdeș, under the title “The Gold Museum of Brad. Characterization and classification of native gold samples and of other minerals”.
Smaller gold deposits have also been identified and exploited in the Banat Montan, and other gold occurrences are related to shear zones in the Carpathians and the Apuseni, but most of them did not have high economic importance.
The study shows that, before the development of underground mining, gold was obtained in significant quantities from the alluvial deposits of the rivers, which represented an important source for the populations that inhabited these territories since ancient times.
The golden quadrilateral
The gold-bearing region in the Metaliferi Mountains, in the Apusenilor arc, was outlined in the form of a quadrangle with the corners at Săcărâmb (Hunedoara county – video), Zlatna, Roșia Montană and Abrud (Alba county), respectively Baia de Aries. The place of the richest gold mines in the history of Romania was located on the border between Hunedoara and Alba counties, on an area of approximately 600 square kilometers, dominated by mountains covered with forests and crossed by the waters of Crișului Alb, Ampoiului and Abrudului, being bordered by Mureș.
“The gold deposits of the Metalliferous Mountains were Romania's main source of gold (probably more than 75% of the total amount of gold mined throughout history comes from this area). On the scale of the entire Carpatho-Balkan chain, this unit represents an anomaly of gold metallogenesis and has remained one of the most productive gold mining regions in Europe and the world. The historical amount of gold extracted from the approximately 60 deposits epithermals known from the Golden Quadrilateral was about 1,750 tons”shows the research carried out by geologists.
Maramureș is one of the most important mining regions in Romania and in Europe, where polymetallic ores rich in gold, silver, lead and copper have been mined over time.
“It is estimated that approximately 125 tons of gold have been extracted, throughout history, from more than 20 mineralized structures in the Baia Mare district. However, this amount is probably underestimated, if we consider that more than 20 tons of gold were extracted from the Cavnic metallogenetic field alone, in the period 1875–1993. Geologist Kamen Kouzmanov and his collaborators believe that the Baia Mare district still contains approx. 33.6 tons of unmined gold”the research shows.
The gold of Apuseni, found everywhere in Antiquity
The first gold mines in Apuseni date back to Antiquity. In the pre-Roman period, the ancient tribes collected gold from the golden sands of the Apuseni rivers or obtained it by breaking rocks that contained precious ore, visible on the surface.
“The first gold exploitations were limited to collecting gold from riverbeds and valleys, where it is brought by water from auriferous quartz rocks, in the form of small and thin sheets or threads, or in the form of tiny and shiny threads or grains”. pointed out Ion Rusu Abrudeanu, in the work Romanian Gold (1933).
From the Apuseni Mountains, before the Daco-Roman wars at the beginning of the second century, about 200 tons of gold would have been extracted, according to some historians, based on ancient documentary sources. One such source is the estimate made by the chronicler Ioannes Lydus, from the 6th century, on the spoils of war in gold and silver taken from Dacia by the Romans, following the wars of the beginning of the 2nd century.
“… Fara (Scythia), a country which the great Traianus first conquered, seizing Decebalus, the chieftain of the Getae, and capturing gold to the weight of 5,000,000 livres and double silver, besides cups and vessels of inestimable value, herds of cattle and armaments, and excellent fighting men, to the number of more than 500,000 taken with all arms, like Crito, who was party to the war”, pointed out the Byzantine author.
Historians who researched the work of Ioannes Lydus estimated that Trajan would have brought 165 tons of gold and over 330 tons of silver from Dacia.
From the beginning of the 2nd century, when the land of gold in Dacia came under Roman occupation, the Romans organized the first gold districts, called Alburnus Maior (Roșia Montană), attested from 131 AD, Ampellum (Zlatna – video) and Auraria Minor (Abrud), also attested from the 2nd century, and opened the first mining galleries – some, like Roșia Montană and Treptele Romane, being preserved until in the present.
Stănija, the new El Dorado of the Metaliferous Mountains. The hidden land, sought after for its great riches PHOTO VIDEO
“Our ancestors, Dacians and Romans, not knowing explosive powder at that time, made galleries in the mine and crushed the large rocks, which contained gold, by heating, i.e. by fire. Over the pieces of stone heated in this way, they then poured vinegar and water, which made their crushing more rapid. The remains of evidence can still be seen today in Roșia Montană, namely at the Great Citadel and the Little Citadel, massive pierced by a labyrinth of galleries from which the precious metal ore was extracted”, pointed out the historian Ion Rusu Abrudeanu.
During the almost two centuries of Roman occupation of the Apuseni lands, around 5,000 kilograms of gold were sent to Rome annually, Ion Rusu Abrudeanu said. Historians estimate that only during the Roman period, the Apuseni Mountains were mined about 450 – 500 tons of gold.
Gold, rediscovered in the Middle Ages
Gold was rediscovered in the Middle Ages, in the centuries-old forests that had covered most of the West, by then almost completely swallowing the remains of ancient settlements and the roads that connected them. At the same time, the extraction of alluvial gold continued in many places in the Apuseni, but also outside the Carpathians, in the valleys of the Lotru, Jiu, Olănești, Olt, Argeș, Ialomița, Buzău and Bistrița rivers.
In Transylvania entered under the Kingdom of Hungary, mining was gradually relaunched, with the repopulation of some settlements and the bringing of settlers specialized in the exploitation and processing of precious metals. The old mining tradition was preserved especially in the area of Zlatna, Abrudului (video), Baia de Aries and Roșia Montane, where gold continued to be extracted both from the alluvium and from the veins hidden in the mountain.
“The gold deposits of Zlatna have been exploited since the Roman period. The town of Zlatna was the center of the Roman mining authority and the meeting place of the procuratores aurariarum dacicarum. The importance of Zlatna resumed in the 18th century, but extensive mining had developed in the region as early as the 13th century, when no less than 36 metallurgical furnaces operated in Zlatna and Baia de Aries.” notes the study published by geologists.
Modern mining began at the end of the 18th century, during the Austrian Empire, when some mines were reorganized according to new technical plans. The engineers and specialists sent by the imperial administration introduced modern machinery for that era, set up systematic galleries and water drainage facilities, transforming the old exploitations into efficient mining centers, which annually supplied tons of gold to Vienna, the political center of the Austrian Empire.
The mines of Săcărâmb produced over 30 tons of gold in the 18th and 19th centuries, historians show, and in the 20th century the Barza mine field would have yielded over 200 tons of gold. In the Musariu mine, from the same mining perimeter, on November 6, 1891, at the intersection of the Clara and Carpen veins, in the Maria horizon, 55 kilograms of free gold were discovered.
Mines with ancient origins, expanded in the 20th century
In the 20th century, gold mines were nationalized and expanded by the Romanian state, sometimes destroying the famous Romanian galleries such as those in Roșia Montană, but their production gradually decreased towards the end of the 80s.
The license for the Certej project will be extended. The deposit contains over 60 tons of gold and hundreds of tons of silver
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Roșia Montană Photo Daniel Guță THE TRUTH (143) JPG
In 1989, 10 gold mines were still in operation: in Roșia Montană and Baia de Aries (Alba), Barza (Hunedoara county), Nistru, Săsar, Ilba, Cavnic, Băiuț, Baia Sprie and Șuior (Maramureș). Their gold content varied from 3.94 g/ton and 3.88 g/ton, in the case of the richest, to 0.89 g/ton, in the case of the poorest, showed a report on the production of gold and silver for the years 1987–1988, published by the National Bank of Romania in the study Evolution of the gold stock of the National Bank of Romania during the communist period (1946–1989).
After 1990, the Romanian state considered them unviable from an economic point of view, opened the way for massive restructuring and layoffs and finally stopped the activity. The reasons were complex. The mines were no longer re-engineered, they operated with machines and installations that had passed their scrapping date for several years, the funds no longer even covered the insurance of transport, the purchase of mine wood, wagons and tools, lamps and equipment needed by the miners, and improvisations were used to prolong the agony of the mining sections.
Of the 10 gold mines still in operation in 1989, Baia de Aries was the first to close, in 2003–2004, and the others were gradually closed in the mid-2000s.
The gold deposits were not exhausted. In Roșia Montană (Alba county), the mining project started in the 2000s by the company Roșia Montană Gold Corporation (RMGC) and currently stopped aimed at extracting over 300 tons of gold and 1,600 tons of silver.
In Valea Rovinei, in Hunedoara, another mining project estimates the exploitation of a deposit of around 217 tons of gold and 635,000 tons of copper, according to the Euro Sun Mining company, which is developing the project on an area of over 27 square kilometers. At Certeju de Sus, the mining operation proposed since the 2000s aimed to extract, in a period of 16 years, more than 63 tons of gold and almost another 375 tons of silver.
