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Les Martys

mine/quarry
Type
mine/quarry

Les Martys

Pleiades ID: 246491

production mine-2

Description

A center of mining and ore processing.

See Further

  • BAtlas 25 H2 Les Martys
    Talbert, Richard J. A., ed. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43970336.
    Access
  • PECS (Perseus) LES MARTYS Canton of Mas-Cabardès, Aude, France
    Stillwell, Richard, William L MacDonald, and Marian Holland McAllister, eds. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0006.
    Access

See Also

Names

Creators & Contributors

H.S. Sivan S.J. Keay R.W. Mathisen DARMC R. Talbert Sean Gillies Johan Åhlfeldt Jeffrey Becker Tom Elliott

Citation Information

H.S. Sivan, S.J. Keay, and R.W. Mathisen. "Les Martys" Pleiades, 28 January 2021. https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/246491.
Last modified: 2021-01-28T17:46:59Z

Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (PECS)

PECS Reference

LES MARTYS Canton of Mas-Cabardès, Aude, France.

Ore refinery N of Carcassone in the Montagne Noire (considered a part of the Cévennes in antiquity), in a region rich in mineral resources and marked by numerous traces of ancient and mediaeval mining operations. The best known site (Domaine des Forges) consists of large and widespread ancient deposits of iron dross, worked in recent decades for the sake of the metal. The site is marked at various points by the remains of walls belonging to Gallo-Roman industrial buildings. The artifacts that are found mixed with the dross consist largely of metal tools, ceramics, glassware, coins, and other objects.

The ores of Les Martys consisted of haematite and limonite, which could be worked for iron but seem to have been exploited primarily for the gold and silver they contain, a fact which explains the enormous mass of dross covering several ha. To judge from the surviving artifacts, the main period of activity was from the 1st to the 2d c. B.C.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Labrousse, “Bxploitation d'or et d'argent dans le Rouergue et l'Albigeois,” Fédération Historique du Languedoc et du Roussillon (1958) 91-106; “Informations,” Gallia 20 (1962) 615; 31 (1973) 478-79I.

G. BARRUOL

Location

43.422158, 2.310707