Roșia Montană

Gold has been taken out of these mountains since before the Romans, who industrialised the operation after the conquest of Dacia and left the most extensive Roman underground mine workings known anywhere: kilometres of galleries cut in trapezoidal section by hand, along with wooden waterwheels and wax writing tablets recovered from the shafts and now in museums across Europe. Mining continued through the medieval and Habsburg periods and into the twentieth century, so the valley carries the marks of every phase, with the village of Roșia Montană itself, its square of old houses and churches, sitting among spoil heaps and open workings. A section of the Roman galleries is open to visitors on a guided tour, and a small museum covers the archaeology. The site was inscribed as World Heritage in 2021, and it is simultaneously listed as in danger, which reflects the fragility of the landscape and its buildings.

History

Archaeological and metallurgical evidence shows gold mining in this corner of Transylvania since the late Stone Age, and under Trajan the Romans founded the mining town of Alburnus Maior with Illyrian colonists from southern Dalmatia; a wax tablet of 6 February 131 is its earliest record, and digs have found houses, cemeteries, galleries, tools, 25 wax tablets and many Greek and Latin inscriptions around Carpeni Hill, before the Romans left Dacia in 271. Transylvanian Saxon miners revived the work in the Middle Ages with similar techniques until the wars of the mid-16th century, mining grew under the Austrian Empire, whose Charles VI funded the building of ponds in 1733, and after 1918 most of the remaining veins were worked out under concessions to local people. The Romanian state took over the mines in 1948, small underground mining went on until the late 1960s, an open-cast pit was cut at Cetate in 1975 and employed 775 people, and state mining came to an end in 2006, before Romania joined the European Union (Wikipedia, Roșia Montană).

The main sights

• Roman galleries - hand-cut trapezoidal tunnels on a guided underground route.
• The mining village - the old square, churches and houses among the workings.
• Surface workings - open pits, spoil heaps and adits across the valley.
• The site museum - archaeology and mining history at the gallery entrance.

When to go

May to October; the galleries are cold and the surface tracks are rough in wet weather. Tours run to a schedule and can be booked out at weekends. Autumn colour in the valley is good and the light suits the spoil landscape.

Before you go

The village is partly depopulated and many buildings are boarded or derelict, which gives the place a heavy atmosphere. The underground tour is short, cold and involves stooping in low galleries. Facilities are minimal. The recent history of the site is contested locally and best approached with tact.

Nearby

Detunata basalt columns are close; Alba Iulia lies east.