Ancient times The mines are older than recorded history. Even at the time of
Classical Greece, they were older than historians could determine: Modern archaeology has demonstrated that the mines were exploited since at least the
Bronze Age:
isotopic analyses of various objects produced in
Greece's Mycenaean period indicates that they contain
lead extracted from the Laurion mines. The earliest evidence for mining activity at Laurion comes from the
Late Neolithic period, around 3200 BC. Mining became more systematic starting from the late 6th century BC, and in the 5th century it was an important source of revenue for
Athens. During this period, the city began to mine a new and particularly rich vein, which unlike the two which had previously been exploited did not appear on the surface. Shafts were driven down into the ground and galleries opened where slaves, chained, naked, and branded, worked the seams illuminated only by guttering oil lamps. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. This discovery meant that at the beginning of the
second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC), the Athenian state had at its disposal a hundred
talents of silver (about 2.6 tonnes) from the aforementioned vein. Rather than distribute this wealth amongst the citizens of Athens,
Themistocles proposed that this money should be used to construct 200
triremes, which were used to conduct the naval campaign against Persia which culminated in victory at the
Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. After the Persians fled Athens around 479 BCE, the city needed to be rebuilt. They were reopened later, but the later wars, exhaustion of the ores and the influx of precious metal during the Hellenistic era reduced their importance. In the early Roman era, the mining efforts were still significant, with the
Deipnosophistae (early 3rd-century AD), referring to
Posidonius, making mention of large slave revolts there around the times of the
Second Servile War (104–100 BC).
Sulla's campaign against Athens in the
First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC), put an end to the mining although there appear to have been limited attempts to reactivate them a few centuries later.
Modern times In 1860, mining engineer
Andreas Kordellas investigated Laurion, and wrote of the potential for processing slag in the region. Mining at Laurion resumed in 1864. Renewed mining involved both the processing of ancient slag for remaining
lead and
silver and the extraction of fresh ore. Mining of zinc ore was a commercially significant in the Laurion area in modern times. It was mined from reactivation in 1864 until 1930.
Iron ore was also mined through the 1950s. The mines continued to be active, producing silver and other metals until profitable sulfide deposits were exhausted in 1978. During the early years of their modern operation, the mines became the cause for a legal dispute, known as
Lavreotika (1869–1875), between the Greek state and the mining company, that resulted in foreign powers threatening military intervention. After the dispute was resolved, an economic scandal broke out, as a result of the cultivation of rumors regarding the existence of gold reserves in the mines. The mines were a theater of social and labor conflicts with numerous strikes taking place in late 19th century. The 1896
Laurion miners strike was violently confronted by the mining company's guards resulting in the death of two workers. The miners responded by blowing up the company's offices and killing the guards. In response the government sent police forces against the strikers. Further clashes occurred, to which the government responded by sending the military whose intervention resulted in more workers' deaths. This was the end of the strikes with most of the strikers' demands not being met and with a military force being permanently established to patrol the miners. == Geology ==