Copper mines on Mount Gabriel

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Summit of Mount Gabriel

The copper mines at Mount Gabriel are located on the southeast slope of Mount Gabriel ( Irish Cnoc Osta ) north of the town of Schull ( An Scoil ) in the townland of Skeagh ( An Sceach ) on the Mizen Peninsula in County Cork in Ireland .

According to radiocarbon dating , which showed an age between 3200 and 1500 BC, they come from the Early Bronze Age . The age rating is not without controversy: an alternative theory by Stephen Briggs suggests that the mines are much younger and date from the late 19th century. However, his arguments were contradicted by many Irish archaeologists.

More than 25 pits and short shafts with a maximum length of 9 meters were discovered. These were cut into the rock with stone tools. The rock was previously heated with fire and then quickly cooled with water. This made it easier for the stones to split off during processing. Numerous stone mallets and pieces of these tools were found in the shafts and spoil heaps. The spoil heaps consist mainly of the crushed rock from which the ore-bearing pieces were extracted. Furnaces for roasting and smelting the copper ore were not found.

The copper ore deposits in Ireland's southwestern peninsulas may have been a factor in the increased settlement of the region. The Derrycarhoon , also located near Schull, is one of the archaeological sites in this area , where six Bronze Age copper mines were found under a layer of peat more than 4 meters thick, in which numerous tools, including a wooden ladder, have been found.

A relationship between the Bronze Age metallurgy in Ireland and that on the Iberian Peninsula and the bell beaker culture has not yet been clearly demonstrated.

The finds from the Bronze Age copper mines at Mount Gabriel are kept in the archaeological collection of the National Museum of Ireland .

literature

  • AL Brindley, J. Lanting: Radiocarbon Dates for the Mount Gabriel Copper Mines. In: P. Crewe, S. Crewe (Eds.): Early Mining in the British Isles , 1990, p. 64
  • William O'Brien: Mount Gabriel: Bronze Age mining in Ireland. Galway University Press, Galway 1994, ISBN 0-907-77556-X

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Briggs: The archeology of copper mining on Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork, Ireland , London 2003 ISSN  0066-5983
  2. ^ John Jackson: The Age of Primitive Copper Mines on Mount Gabriel, West County Cork . The Journal of Irish Archeology 2, 1984, pp. 41-50 abstract at JSTOR
  3. ↑ Theodore William Moody, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Francis X. Martin, Francis John Byrne: A New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and early Ireland. Oxford University Press, 2005 p. 118 ISBN 0198217374
  4. ↑ HJ Case: Were Beaker-people the first metallurgists in Ireland? Palaeohistoria, 12, pp. 141-177, 1966 and A. Sheridan: A reconsideration of the origins of Irish metallurgy. Journal of Irish Archeology, 1, pp. 11-19, 1983

Coordinates: 51 ° 33'18 "  N , 9 ° 32'6.9"  W.