From the top of Great Orme Hill, the landscape is incredibly calm, with gentle slopes of green meadows and pastoral plowing stretching all the way to the Irish Sea. But Llandudno hides a secret for millennia, a secret hidden from humanity for a long time underground.
There is a copper mine under the hill, the tunnels of which stretch for more than eight kilometers. The tunnels have a complex system of nine different levels, they descend seventy meters underground. Moreover, some of them are so narrow that only a child could climb there. The creation of this amazing tunnel dates back to the Bronze Age, and the first passages were dug over 3,800 years ago. For several centuries, the unusual mine remained the largest of those existing at that time in Great Britain.
Many of the mines of those times remained unknown until the 1980s, when several of them were opened in a row. The Great Orme mine has become a central discovery due to its impressive size - not only is it one of the largest in the country, but also a leader in Europe.
In 2015, the artifacts found in the mines, as well as the mines themselves, were carefully analyzed, and the result of the analysis was presented at an international conference. It was confirmed that the mines were engaged in the production of high quality copper, which was later used to forge bronze. Interestingly, the copper mined in the mine was later used in France, and in Holland, and even in Denmark. The artifacts found in northwestern Europe match the composition of the rock found in the mine, allowing the copper to travel in different directions.
The discovery of this mine suggests that in the Bronze Age there was a real flourishing of production in those places. The Great Orme mine supplied the largest amount of ore in the country, supplying Brittany and the more western regions as well. Prior to this, another large mine was discovered on Ross Island in the southwest of Ireland, which dates back to an earlier date - it was created 4,400 years ago. It was possible to determine the date by bone tools and fragments of coal found in the passages.
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Copper was one of the first metals discovered by man, and therefore was highly valued. Already four thousand years ago, the inhabitants of those places were producing bronze. The process is very difficult: you need not only to withstand all technological requirements, but also to organize a group of people, establish communication, and plan everything. Based on this, scientists conclude that the Bronze Age was a time for the development of social ties and the establishment of relations between different regions.
At the moment, ten copper mines have been found in the UK, but many of them are quite small. They find it hard to match the size of the Great Orme mine. However, they show how massive the copper mining process was and how many people were involved.
The development of the mine began with the fact that people simply dug the ground where they found green and black copper fragments. Then the shaft began to grow underground, stretching horizontally and descending lower and lower, forming many narrow tunnels. The copper that was mined at the Great Orme mine proved to be especially good for smelting, which is why the deposit was so popular. Plus, it's a soft rock that's easier to dig.
However, it was very hard work. There was no point in digging wide tunnels, so some of them are very small. Families worked in mines, children dug narrow passages and such work was considered completely normal at that time. Incredibly, it is believed that the dangerous mines in Britain were created by children.