TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS: A STUDY OF THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF MINING AND METALLURGY AT LAURION
Kim Van Liefferinge
Demetrios, he says, states in reference to the Attic silver mines that the people dig as strenuously as if they expected to bring up Pluto himself.
Strabo, Geography 3.2.9
1 INTRODUCTION
Technology is a ubiquitous aspect of our everyday world. We use it in all our endeavours, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. Although it is hard to ignore in this day and age, classical scholars have shown little awareness of this observation in their research. Technology has primarily been studied from a restricted angle, most notably a technical or economic one. The former perspective views technology as a purely technical force, concentrating principally on tools and techniques. This has resulted in meticulous, descriptive studies of specific technologies, but has rarely led to a more contextual interpretation of their development. The latter approach focuses on technological innovation, and its capability to increase production outputs and trigger economic growth. Since technology is a major determinant of economic development, this is an important angle; however, technological change cannot be appreciated and understood from this perspective alone.
In this chapter, I present a different way of approaching classical technology. Using the sociological theory of SCOTS (social construction of technological systems), I argue that technological change always occurs against the backdrop of interdependent environmental, social, economic and political factors. Without focusing on this entanglement, technological change can never be truly appreciated and understood.
I will apply this approach to the case study of the Athenian silver mines in Laurion, an area of approximately 200 km2 in the south-east of Attica in Greece (Fig. 19.1). Laurion was exploited for its mineral resources from the transition of the Final Neolithic–Early Bronze Age until the late Roman period, with a peak in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. This boost in mining occurred against the background of environmental changes, such as depleting ore bodies, and a range of political and economic events, such as the introduction of coinage, the Persian Wars and the active interference of Athens in the area. Under the influence of these intertwining factors, the area was transformed into a vast industry, leaving behind a remarkably varied infrastructure of mine entrances, spoil heaps, ore-washing workshops and furnaces (Fig. 19.1).
Figure 19.1 Map of Attica and the Laurion (by C. Stal in Van Liefferinge et al. 2014: fig. 1)
This chapter will start with a discussion of the field of classical technology and move on to explain how SCOTS can address the current hiatuses in this field. Next, the history of mining and metallurgy in Laurion will be explained. This overview will serve as the backbone for an investigation of technological change in Laurion from a SCOTS perspective. Because of their specific importance to the development of the silver industry, the main focus of this chapter is on ore-dressing procedures.
2 THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL TECHNOLOGY
2.1 Approaches towards classical technology
The study of classical technology has a turbulent history. For a long time, it was the field of technicians, whose focus was principally on raw technology (that is tools, techniques and production processes). In the first half of the twentieth century, many specialist studies were published, such as on mills and presses (Drachmann 1932) or mining (Davies 1935). Besides these, extensive overview works by Singer et al. (1954–8) and Forbes (1955–64) offered a more general idea of the range of technologies developed by the ancients. Although such studies provide a vast list and in-depth description of specific tools and techniques, they rarely make an attempt to explain the development of technologies within a broader societal context.
Moses Finley (1973) introduced a crucially different approach by immersing technology in the debate on the ancient economy. By doing so, he strongly intertwined both fields of research, a trend that is still omnipresent in classical technology studies to this very day. In contrast to the previously mentioned technical studies, Finley did attempt to investigate technology with more socially driven questions in mind, but he caused damage to the field by systematically underestimating innovations and their diffusion. His opinion is unambiguously expressed in the opening words of his influential article in The Economic History Review (Finley 1965): ‘It is a commonplace’, he stated resolutely, ‘that the Greeks and Romans together added little to the world’s store of technological knowledge and equipment.’ This provocative statement was taken as a commonplace and continuously and uncritically recited afterwards. Until the 1980s, the debate on ancient technology was held in a particularly negative atmosphere: the ancients were supposed to have been primarily concerned with status, making them unable to conceptualise economic development and, therefore, the economic application of technology. Inherently linked to this issue is a more general attitude labelled as the blockage question (Cuomo 2007: 3–4): scholars persistently define technology against the background of the modern industrialised world, in which success and innovation are central notions. Given these facts, it is not surprising that seemingly simple improvements such as the pulley, or the diffusion of technologies such as the water mill, have for a long time not been assessed within their historical context.
Since 1984, these attitudes have come under increasing attack, particularly by White (1984), Wikander (1984), Oleson (1984) and Greene (1986). The great merit of their work was to start from a more balanced and interdisciplinary approach, in which archaeology had a more central place. The coherent inclusion of these material remains – revealing a remarkable body of evidence for the use, adjustment and diffusion of technologies – shook the foundations of classical economic history.1
Despite the fact that Finley’s views and the blockage question have been strongly addressed and ancient technology studies have made excellent progress, the actual field has a long way to go. There are two specific issues in the current research: first, classical technology has been investigated with a predominant focus on innovation and progress, creating the impression that technology is only important as a determinant of economic growth. A second problem is the overemphasis on Roman history, resulting in the general neglect and even negative appraisal of Greek technological dynamics. This situation is reminiscent of an issue addressed in the work of Morris (2004) and Ober (2010; 2015) on Greek economic growth. While the Roman economy was given much more credit in the post-Finleyan debate, this could not be said for its Greek counterpart. This attitude is particularly illuminated in the work of Millett, who wrote even at the beginning of the present century that ancient Greek economic growth was ‘elusive or non-existent’ (Millett 2001: 35–6). Morris (2004: 709) argued that this was a misconception, mainly caused by the distinct Roman and Greek datasets. In contrast to Greek textual sources, the Roman ones comprise much quantitative data, easily allowing the study of economic performance. The lack of such data in the Greek world, however, does not automatically imply economic stagnation. Morris suggested starting the study of the Greek economy from a different angle by including the archaeological record more fully in the debate. Investigating these data from a long-term perspective, he was able to document not only an improvement in the Greek standards of living over the period from 800 to 300 BCE, but also an increase in consumption and economic performance.
I argue that many of the challenges for Greek technology studies are similar. If technology is not directly visible in our datasets, the conclusion to be drawn is not necessarily that Greek technological change was non-existent, but could rather be that we are not interpreting the data in a way that makes it readily apparent. The general lack of texts about technology pre-dating the third century BCE has often been seen as proof of technological stagnation, a conclusion that would not be so easily made if the archaeological record were correctly involved. The biggest challenge is not to study technologies as static features. We often admire the Parthenon or the Tunnel of Eupalinos as isolated accomplishments, instead of acknowledging that these structures required high-level engineering, developed over a long time span, and a specific social structure enabling these developments. The Parthenon is the result of a combination of such technical skills and a well-operated building programme by the Athenian state. The same can be said for the Eupalinos Tunnel, providing water for the city of Samos. The creation and improvement of technologies, hence, is never just about technical skills or economic demand; it is as much about social and organisational measures. Viewing technologies as static features has also hampered our understanding of Laurion. A good example is our conception of the ore washery. First, the washery is generally seen as a purely technical, static device, used by private entrepreneurs throughout the classical period. As will be explained, washeries are actually quite diverse in their configuration and were developed by experimentation over a long period of time. Second, people have rarely looked beyond the washery. These devices were only effective because they were part of a larger workshop, which in turn operated against the background of a larger organisational structure run by the Athenian state.
Given these factors, I argue that the study of Greek technology would benefit greatly from a more contextualised, long-term approach – one that gives more weight to the entanglement of historical actors and their surroundings in the search for technological answers to socially defined problems.
2.2 Looking for new approaches: SCOTS
The development of ancient technology studies shows some remarkable parallels with modern technology research. Especially until the 1980s, modern technology studies fell into three distinct categories (Pinch and Bijker 2012: 15–20). First, there were economy-oriented innovation studies, which mainly sought to explain success in technological innovation. Second, histories of technology provided descriptive studies of specific technologies and their production processes. Third, there were attempts to initiate a sociology of technology by drawing from studies on the sociology of science. Such research defined technological knowledge in terms of Kuhnian paradigms (Johnston 1972; Dosi 1984).
Then in the 1980s, an important body of work, brought together by E. Bijker, T. Hughes and T. Pinch under the name SCOTS, emerged as a reaction against these approaches. They accused innovation studies of ‘black boxing’ technology (Pinch and Bijker 2012: 5). Borrowed from behavioural psychology, the metaphor of the black box refers to a focus on in- and outputs, leaving the content of the box untouched. Layton (1977: 198) wrote that instead of treating technology as a black box, ‘what is needed is an understanding of technology from the inside, both as a body of knowledge and as a social system’. This critique applied less to histories of technology, but these studies remain problematic because of their endemically descriptive approach and asymmetric focus on linear models and successful technologies, creating an unrepresentative image of technological development. SCOTS noted that this has led scholars to believe that the success of an artifact is an explanation for its development, whereas it is exactly this success that should be explained (Pinch and Bijker 2012: 16). The sociology of technology was a welcome addition to the then-current body of work, but its strong emphasis on socio-psychological paradigms fell short when it came to analysing physical artifacts.
SCOTS offered a radically new approach for the study of technology. The name is an umbrella term for three related fields, more specifically the social construction of technology (SCOT), large technological systems (LTS) and actor–network theory (ANT). Common to each of these fields is a threefold rejection of the concept of the inventor, technological determinism and the strict distinction between technological, social, economic and political facets of technological change. All three approaches have used the metaphor of the ‘seamless web’ to describe this entanglement (Bijker et al. 2012: xli).
Besides these commonalities, the three fields also have quintessential traits of their own. SCOT is a social constructivist approach (Pinch and Bijker 2012). The central notion is the social group, which can be an institution as well as an organised or unorganised group of individuals. These groups formulate problems during the development of an artifact, for which they will try and find solutions. There is considerable variation in terms of how problems can be solved and which solution will be selected. When a group reaches a consensus about how to solve a given problem, the group is said to have achieved closure with respect to that problem, and the accepted state of the technology in question thus acquires a higher degree of stabilisation. Both stabilisation and closure occur repeatedly during a technology’s lifespan. Closure does not mean that a given problem disappears in the strict sense of the word, but rather that the social group sees it as solved (rhetorical closure) or otherwise redefines it in more palatable terms (closure by redefinition of the problem). Because these processes happen in what are ultimately social terms, SCOT assumes a considerable degree of flexibility when it comes to designing technological solutions.
In its roots, SCOT is influenced by Hughes’ work on large technological systems (1979; 1983). According to Hughes, a technological system contains complex, problem-solving components – including physical features, organisations and natural resources – that are socially constructed and society-shaping. Central in this theory are system builders: in order to build and maintain a system, these innovators organise artifacts, people, institutions and nature in a way that contributes to the intended goal of the system. Anything left outside of the system’s influence, or whose existence does not depend on the system, is part of the environment by definition. When system builders decide (at the behest of the system itself) to involve such factors, these become an inherent part of it and subsequently start interacting with its other elements in predefined ways. For example, unexploited silver veins remain outside of the system until they start to be mined, at which point they cease to be considered part of the environment. If one of these elements in the system changes, the other ones have to be adjusted accordingly. A crucial notion in this model is the reverse salient, which is used to describe something that impedes the proper functioning of the system or its development. The reverse salient consists of a set of critical problems, for which system builders will try and find solutions. If they are successful, the reverse salient will be corrected and the system will continue to operate. LTS differs from SCOT in the sense that it does not specifically privilege the social. Social actors, including system builders, are considered an inherent part of the system and function according to its needs rather than according to their own values or desires (Law 2012: 107).
Actor–network theory (ANT), well established in historical research, agrees with the LTS view on the social, but takes this a step further by breaking down the boundaries between human and non-human entities, which are inclusively referred to as actants. From the perspective of ANT, heterogeneous actants are linked together in networks of associations from which each piece derives importance and meaning. Key terms are simplification and juxtaposition (Callon 2012: 87–9). Simplification describes the process by which human minds understand the infinitely complex world around them by use of heuristics and models. Juxtaposition describes the closely related act of defining the associations between heterogeneous actants. For an ANT theorist, technological innovation occurs when the simplified reality that a society is using to understand a part of the world encounters information that is incompatible with it. This is analogous to the process that occurs when Kuhnian paradigms encounter crises posed by anomalous data. The current model’s simplifications must be revised, and a new actor network is constructed to accommodate the intruding version of reality.
Because of the nature of my critique and its parallels with SCOTS’ relationship to modern technology studies, I suggest that ancient technology studies would benefit from the involvement of these approaches.2 Ancient technology has too often been investigated as a black box defined in terms of in- and outputs or, applied to the Laurion case study, as no more than an exploiter of mineral resources and a producer of silver coins. The neglect of all the crucial intermediary steps and how these were developed through time leads authors such as Harris (2001: 80) to devote only a short paragraph to mining and metallurgy in his discussion of vertical specialisation, making him conclude that ‘the operations were not all that complex . . . and the low level of vertical specialization was obviously the result of the rudimentary technology of the ancient world’. My focus will be on the missing links in his narrative, by emphasising the different phases in the production process and immersing these in their social and environmental context. I will first give an overview of the development of mining and metallurgy in Laurion, which will subsequently be used to analyse these data from a SCOTS perspective.
3 TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN LAURION
3.1 History of Laurion
The history of Laurion cannot be understood without a discussion of its geological properties. The geological stratigraphy of the area consists of alternating layers of marble and mica schist between which specific minerals were formed. The richest contacts zones are the first and the third, since minerals develop best directly under the schist horizon. One of the most frequently exploited ores in ancient times is galena (PbS), a lead sulphide containing silver as an impurity (Rehren et al. 2002: 27).
Figure 19.2 The beneficiation process according to Negris (1881) (by B. Nicolas in Morin 2005)
A crucial concept is the metal grade of ores, since this directly influences the methods and innovations applied in metallurgy. The silver content of galena depends on the amount of lead present in the ore and varies substantially from deposit to deposit. In Laurion, the lead content varies from very small to 65 per cent (Conophagos 1980: 126), consisting of 500 to 5,000 g Ag/t (Marinos and Petrascheck 1956: 147). When the argentiferous lead in the ore exceeds 30 per cent, the silver production process is relatively straightforward, as it only has to consist of two phases: first, the ores are exploited in the mines, and second, they are brought to the furnaces to separate lead from silver. If, however, the amount is less than 30 per cent, the ores should be purified first (Conophagos 1980: 126–7), an action that considerably complicates the metallurgical process and the organisation of the industry as a whole. Since the average lead percentage of the Laurion ores is generally low (about 15–20 per cent), most of these require purification (Conophagos 1980: 21, 127). In a process referred to as ore dressing or beneficiation, the metal is liberated from the gangue (waste material) by subsequently crushing, grinding and/or washing the ore (Fig. 19.2). Crushing and grinding reduces the ores to a very small grain size, which prepares them for ore washing. This procedure took place in a washery, a device consisting of channels and settling tanks in which the heavier lead and silver particles were separated from the lighter impurities by means of water.
The exploitation of silver mines often seems to follow a pattern. Given the complexity involved in ore beneficiation, experiments are generally initiated when rich ore outcrops are largely exhausted (Krysko 1988: 88–90; Mussche 1998: 11–12; Kakavoyannis 2001: 365), prompting miners to involve lower-grade ores in the silver production process. Krysko (1988) observed a similar process at Broken Hill in Australia during the nineteenth-century silver rush. Miners exploited the richest deposits first and, once these were exhausted, installed washeries to process the poorer ores. In this way, silver production could be maintained and even expanded.
An understanding of exploitation histories and metallurgical processes helps our interpretation of the available evidence from Laurion. Although the evidence is heavily skewed towards the fourth century BCE, it is important to try and look beyond this period.
Mining started on a small and dispersed scale as early as the transition of the Final Neolithic (4200–3100 BCE) to the Early Bronze Age I (3100–2650 BCE). As indicated by small mining galleries spread over Laurion, these were opencast mines, digging into the easily visible, rich ore outcrops of the first contact and following the vein some distance through small drifts. This has been reported in the Keratea area (Kakavoyianni et al. 2008: 46) and at mine no. 3 in Thorikos (Spitaels 1984). Contemporary evidence for the smelting of silver ores (i.e. litharge, or lead oxide [PbO], a waste product of cupellation) has been encountered at several sites in Laurion.3 Later litharge fragments, dating to the late sixteenth century BCE, were found during the excavation of a house at the top of the Velatouri Hill at Thorikos.4 After that, the image becomes more scattered. Besides litharge finds in an Early Geometric house at Thorikos (Mussche 1998: 61), there is no clear evidence for mining or metallurgy until the introduction of coinage. From then onwards, the image of more intensified mining activities becomes incontestable.
The strongest evidence comes from numismatic sources. The first Athenian owls, produced under Hippias presumably no later than 515 BCE, were manufactured from Laurion silver.5 The introduction of the owls coincides suspiciously well with the increasing Persian pressure under Darius, leading to the loss of Athenian assets in northern Greece, most notably the strategic Thracian mines at Pangaion in 512 BCE. This insecurity could have stimulated the search for silver deposits closer to home and thus the development of Laurion as a fully operational mining area (Hopper 1961: 141). In this sense, it is not surprising that the discovery of the third contact at Maroneia took place during this period of conflict.6 Herodotus (7.144) and Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 22.7) give us a possible hint about the organisation of the mines in this time. They explain that the state accumulated significant revenues from the mines, but neither fragment mentions the leases or the pôlêtai (the city magistrates responsible for public leases) in this process, as was the case in the fourth century BCE (see below). This could possibly suggest a different administration, in which the pôlêtai were not yet involved (Langdon 1991: 68).
Apart from that, archaeological evidence is still very scarce. Since the discovery of the third contact veins in this period, it can be deduced that many of the mineshafts tapping into the third contact share this chronology, but this remains conjecture.
A key site possibly dating to this period is the ore-washing and furnace complex in the Bertseko Valley, not far from ancient Maroneia. A series of ore washeries were carved out in the rock in parallel rows next to a small rivulet flowing through the valley.7 As can be seen in Figure 19.3 (where different parts of the ore washery are identified by letters), the layout of their channels and settling tanks looks rather disorganised. For their water supply the washeries depended on the aforementioned rivulet and wells carved out next to the riverbed. On the opposite side of the valley is a densely packed furnace complex, which was probably used to smelt the ores that were processed in these washeries. Kakavoyiannis (1989; 2001; 2005), who discovered the site, has rightly suggested that this could present an early phase of ore washing and establish a chronology in the beginning of the fifth century BCE. Although his arguments for an absolute dating are not convincing,8 those given for a relative chronology – both by him (1989; 2001: 369) and by Wilson (2000: 139–40) – are. First of all, the washeries seem to be a rudimentary version of the well-known rectangular fourth-century washeries. The settling tanks, channels and main reservoirs can all be identified but their shape and organisation are disorderly, indicating that people were still looking for the most convenient configuration. Second, hydraulic mortars – omnipresent in the fourth-century workshops to waterproof surfaces and devices – were completely absent at the site, suggesting that this technology was not yet mastered. This ties in with a third remark: the Bertseko washeries did not rely on cisterns as the fourth-century workshops did. Cisterns only functioned properly if the inner walls were coated with a waterproof layer to secure them against water loss – an improvement that seems not to have been discovered until later.
Figure 19.3 Washeries 7 (left) and 9 (right) in the Bertseko Valley (after Kakavoyiannis 2005: fig. 37)
This dating also makes sense from a metallurgical perspective. The exploitation of Laurion was intensified to provide silver for coinage and to finance war campaigns against the Persians. This resulted in the discovery of the third contact veins, providing Athens with a seemingly endless supply of silver. But as exploitation intensified, these rich ore deposits got depleted, confronting miners with the following dilemma: if they wanted to make full use of the minerals buried under their lands, new techniques (that is, washeries) were required to involve the remaining lower-grade minerals in the silver production process. The Bertseko washeries could very well be silent witnesses of this evolution.
It is only by the fourth century BCE that we see a more recognisable version of the washery appearing in the archaeological record. Conophagos (1980) plotted many of the metallurgical features – mines, ventilation shafts, ore-dressing workshops and furnaces – on a topographical map. He estimated the number of washeries to be no less than between 200 and 250 (Rehren et al. 2002: 27), but even these numbers are an underestimate. His research focused tightly on specific areas – particularly the Soureza Valley, the Velatouri Hill and the Demoliaki area – leaving a rather unrepresentative image of the actual distribution of industrial features. Excavations executed by the 2nd Ephorate of Antiquities and personal fieldwalks9 have revealed many more of these in other locations, such as the hills facing the Velatouri. Obviously, not all of the Laurion washeries have been investigated, but the ones that have date to the fourth century.10 Their configuration contrasts sharply with what we see at Bertseko. As can be seen in Figure 19.4, they are generally incorporated within independent complexes. Specifically, the workshops consist of rooms to crush and grind ores, an ore washery to purify these, at least one accompanying cistern and living quarters for the workers and workshop owners. Water management was a clear concern throughout the operations. Besides huge water tanks providing water for the washeries, an omnipresent feature is hydraulic mortar. Any space or device in which water was used, such as water catchments, channels, washeries, bathrooms and storage rooms for ores, was lined with this mortar. The washeries further illustrate this concern (see also Fig. 19.3): water was fed from the washery’s main stand tank through nozzles into a series of channels and settling tanks. By the time the water ended up in the last tank, it was virtually pure and ready to be reused.
In the course of this transition, innovations were carried out in metallurgy as well as water technology. The most crucial advancement was the development of hydraulic mortar (Kakavoyiannis 1989; 2001: 369; Wilson 2000: 138–40), used to waterproof the inner walls of water-supply channels, washeries, cisterns and rooms used for storage and bathing. Interestingly, the mortar derives its waterproofing properties from litharge,11 a byproduct of silver smelting as mentioned above. Hydraulic mortar provided numerous advantages: first, it addressed the acute water shortage in Laurion. There are and probably were very few natural water sources that could be used as a dependable base for industrial activities. Rivulets are not only few but also of weak potential, generally just flowing during the rainy seasons.12 This limitation must have been the most important motive for the use of cisterns: these reservoirs enabled the harvesting of rainwater through surface runoff, which could be used to maintain production during the dry period of the year. This would have allowed a full-year instead of seasonal operation of the industry (Kakavoyiannis 1989; 2001: 369; Wilson 2000: 138–40). Second, there are organisational benefits, since mortars make the activity of ore processing less spatially confined. Washeries (and with them cisterns and entire workshops) can be raised independently from the scarce Laurion rivulets and be constructed next to favourable rainwater catchments. Given the large amount of surface runoff accumulating in the Laurion valleys during downpours, the opportunities to raise workshops were plentiful (Van Liefferinge et al. 2014; Van Liefferinge 2018).
Figure 19.4 An example of a fourth-century workshop: Compound C, Agrileza (after Photos-Jones and Ellis Jones 1994: figs. 4-5)
It is clear that the transition to this new configuration did not happen overnight, but was rather subject to incremental change over a period of probably a century, if not longer. Washeries developed from rock-cut, unstructured series of settling tanks and channels to more standardised devices built out of masonry. This, however, does not imply that innovation and experimentation suddenly stopped. In fact, many small but continuous advances were executed in the shape and layout of washeries. During the fourth century, different types of washeries appeared, such as Type I and II,13 the latter of which is a derivation of the former (Kakavoyiannis 1989; 2005: 338). More variations can be recognised in the archaeological record, but these unfortunately remain unpublished. A peculiar washery system has been found at Aghia Triada in a northern branch of the Soureza Valley, where multiple washeries are laid out next to a common water-supply channel. In one specific case, a large washery is connected to a secondary one, which fed into one of its channels. The Skitzeri workshop (Oikonomakou 1996) offers another, unfamiliar configuration. Instead of a closed series of settling tanks and channels, this washery contains two separate circuits, consisting of only one channel and two tanks. Besides these different layouts, more adjustments were made in the details. Some washery channels were provided with vertical plates, acting as barrages and improving the sedimentation process.14 A similar effect was probably achieved by the implementation of overflow runnels.15 There is also variation in the washeries’ settling tanks. Although most washeries have square or rectangular tanks, some entrepreneurs decided to install round ones, some with steps on the inside.16 This would have made the cleaning of the tanks and the recuperation of the concentrated ores significantly more efficient.
Many of these small changes might seem trivial, but they all contributed to more efficient and cost-effective industrial activities. It is not surprising to see this level of experimentation specifically in the context of the fourth-century workshops. As is clear from many literary and epigraphic sources, private entrepreneurs operated these workshops in a particularly competitive environment. Their involvement is neatly illustrated in the so-called mine leases, describing a public–private partnership agreement between the state (under the surveillance of the pôlêtai) and private businessmen. The Laurion mineral deposits remained the property of the state at all times, but the mining rights were farmed out – a system that would have made the government a substantial amount of money. The first preserved lease dates to 367/6 BCE but the text allows us to assume the existence of an earlier stêlê , which – considering that the mines were let out for either seven or three years – leads to a date between 374/3 and 370/69 BCE. This coincides with the economic policy of Kallistratos (373–366 BCE), underpinning the revival of the Athenian economy after the Peloponnesian Wars. The leases decreased in frequency afterwards, the last one dating to 307/6 BCE (Crosby 1950: 190). The quite sudden appearance of the leases is probably not incidental, especially given the extraordinarily dynamic political and economic time Athens found itself in. After the Peloponnesian Wars, strong measures were taken to restore the democracy and raise revenues for the state. Within this context, significant developments took place, such as changes in the mint and the big silver coin recall of 353 BCE (Kroll 2011), the establishment of the dokimastai (officials who certified coins; Ober 2010), the new legislation on the taxes from Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros (Stroud 1998; Moreno 2003; Ober 2008: 260–3) and the creation of new financial offices. Xenophon (Poroi) also mentioned that the Laurion mines were an important area of interest to raise revenues from. There is no literary or epigraphic evidence for contemporary changes in the administration of the mines, but the shift observable in the archaeological evidence might well have occurred hand in hand with a shift in mining rules.
3.2 Technological change in Laurion from a SCOTS perspective
Based on the information given in the previous section, technological change in Laurion can be simplified as shown in Figure 19.5: in order to raise revenues, the Athenians exploited the Laurion mines for silver.
Figure 19.5 Technological change in the Laurion in archaic and classical times
Initially, they mined and refined high-grade silver ores, which allowed the production of silver relatively smoothly. When these mineral resources became exhausted, the Athenians were forced to include low-grade ores in order to maintain or expand silver production. This prompted technological change both in techniques (metallurgy and water technologies) and in organisation (spatial reorganisation of ore-dressing and smelting sites, possibly against the background of institutional changes).
The following sections are meant to be used as a guide for applying SCOTS in archaeological research. What differentiates them is not so much what data are included – indeed, each section draws on the evidence presented above in section 3.1 – as how they are emphasised and spoken about. In other words, each of the SCOTS fields offers a unique perspective on how to uncover the various social component(s) of technological change.
3.2.1 Social construction of technological systems
As mentioned, SCOT looks at these changes from the perspective of social groups, which in this case study are the state, entrepreneurs, slaves and the local population. For the early phases of ore washing it is not possible to attribute specific groups to specific technological developments through direct textual evidence, which makes it difficult to describe technological problems in the actors’ own terms. But the archaeological evidence, although indirect, does reveal material patterns that can help us to interpret what interactions must have taken place between social groups and their technologies, and therefore what problems are likely to have arisen and been solved. This indirect approach allows us to characterise closure when it was likely to have been caused by redefinition of the problem; unfortunately, because of the lack of textual evidence, instances of closure caused by changes in rhetoric remain undetectable.
The interactions between specific groups and technological developments become much more straightforward in the fourth century BCE. As the mine leases show, the state was raising its revenues partly through silver from the Laurion mines, with entrepreneurs as intermediaries. For entrepreneurs, the stakes were clear: the more ore they processed, the richer they got. In this context, it is not surprising to see that the elite had a special interest in the mines. No less than 12 to 20 per cent of the people involved in mining were members of the elite performing the most expensive liturgies (Shipton 2000: 30–7). These entrepreneurs did not operate the industry by themselves, but relied on a vast workforce to exploit the mines and crush, grind, wash and smelt ores. Slaves operating ore washeries and furnaces had to be skilled workers,17 suggesting that this group probably had an important share in the technological development of washeries as well.
Each of these groups had a vested interest in the continued success of the Athenian silver-mining operation. When the high-grade silver ores became depleted, demand for silver remained high. The only option was to start including low-grade ores to maintain or expand silver production. This, however, created a problem in terms of smelting costs.18 Charcoal was a pricey resource, needed in large quantities to produce silver: the costs for smelting both low- and high-grade galena are more or less the same (that is about 20 per cent of its weight in charcoal), but low-grade ores yield much less argentiferous lead, making the fuel input and, hence, the costs to produce silver considerably higher. Smelting ores with a 25 per cent metal content will thus be twice as expensive as minerals with a 50 per cent metal grade. The answer to this problem was to purify these ores through crushing, grinding and washing before transporting them to the furnaces.
Here we see closure through redefinition of the problem. The original problem was created by the depletion of high-grade ores, which raised production costs. Instead of continuing to use the same methods (i.e. smelting alone), the industry redefined the problem from ‘How do we raise revenue by smelting silver ore?’ – which was impossible with low-grade silver – to ‘How do we purify the low-grade ores so that smelting will cost less?’
But although this instance of closure provided some stabilisation, recall from section 2.2 that technological development is a continuous process. The process of variation and selection continued: next was the problem of how to collect a large amount of water for ore washing in an area that was virtually waterless. The most straightforward solution was to install washeries in the proximity of rivulets, such as at Bertseko. The use of rivulets created spatial and hydrological difficulties. Spatially, it forced silver-processing sites to be packed together on a small strip of land next to an ephemeral rivulet. Hydrologically, the rivulets only provided a limited amount of water, hindering the expansion of ore-washing activities. Both for the state and for entrepreneurs, this situation was not tenable, leading them to redefine the problem yet again.
Besides rivulets, Laurion had another, less straightforward water source to offer: surface runoff during downpours. In order to harvest this water, large open reservoirs had to be constructed, which in turn required the development of hydraulic mortars to waterproof their basins. As explained, these mortars also brought about a series of other, especially organisational advances. Workshops could be raised as independent entities that were no longer spatially restricted to the few Laurion rivulets. Hydrological analyses of several workshops in Laurion suggest that the ones in the central valleys had generally been successful in the application of these technologies (Van Liefferinge et al. 2014; Van Liefferinge 2018). Gigantic cisterns, some even up to 1,000 m3 (Conophagos 1980: 255), cluster alongside ephemeral gullies, providing not only sufficient water for year-round ore processing, but also a surplus that could act as a buffer against drought or be used for domestic activities. This, however, seems to not have been the rule. In Thorikos, the hydrological conditions in terms of rainwater harvesting were a lot less favourable, making yearly silver production less likely.19 It would seem that not all areas achieved the same amount of closure as the Laurion heartland.
Here we have our second instance of closure through redefinition of the problem. The problem was created by the organisational and hydrological limitations of the Laurion rivulets. Instead of continuing to use these rivulets in spite of increasing demand for silver, the industry redefined the problem from ‘How do we purify low-grade ores so that smelting will cost less?’ to ‘How can we collect water more efficiently for use in purification?’
As a social constructivist approach, SCOT can be used to draw attention to social actors in the lifespan of a technology. For this specific case study, it enables an explanation of how technological improvements observable in the archaeological record – the development of ore washeries, hydraulic mortars, cisterns etc. – were the result of continuous negotiations between social groups and their environment. Importantly, this approach highlights that the exploitation of the Laurion mines was not just about raw technology. Even though hydraulic mortars were a crucial technical innovation, the real breakthrough lay in their organisational application, allowing the transformation of the Laurion mines into an industry attuned to the needs of entrepreneurs and the state. In other words, by achieving closure of problems through redefinition, the Athenians were able to transform a potentially precarious situation into a prosperous one.
3.2.2 Large technological systems
According to this approach, the Laurion silver mining industry can be defined in terms of a system, which included environmental elements (e.g. ores, water sources, timber) technological artefacts (e.g. washeries, cisterns) and various social actors. A special category of social actor was that of system builders, which, depending on the context, included entrepreneurs and/or members of the state. The goal of these system builders was to fit artefacts into the broader political and economic context and thereby to maintain the Laurion system. An important difference between LTS and SCOT is that the former frames actors as components of the system who act according to its needs, while the latter attributes to actors a more autonomous sense of agency.
The Laurion system was born when social actors decided to start exploiting lead and silver during the transition of the Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. When they did, ore deposits (not to mention the hills containing them and the roads leading to them) became integral parts of the system. In the course of its existence, the integrity of the Laurion system was threatened by a reverse salient, namely the depletion of high-grade ores. This brought about a set of critical problems, reminiscent of the ones encountered by social groups in SCOT: the first was that low-grade ores required purification to reduce smelting costs; the second was that the water supply for these activities (that is, rivulets) confined the industry both spatially and hydrologically. When it comes to explaining how these critical problems were solved, LTS does not primarily turn to social actors. Instead, it refers – in a teleological fashion – to the purpose of the system for any such explanations. It is not specifically the social actors’ desire to avoid cluttering their workshops, or their identification of a more efficient water source, that actually took them away from the rivulets; rather, it was the system’s need for more water that occasioned these productive decisions by the actors contained within it. In other words, the system required system builders to incorporate additional environmental elements into the system (first rivulets, then surface runoff) and carry out technological and organisational improvements to ensure the system’s continued existence. Specifically the development of industrial cisterns and waterproof mortars allowed the system to persevere, and the results of this breakthrough can still be observed in the modern Laurion landscape.
It is useful to think from an LTS perspective about what causes system breakdown if its purpose is supposed to effectively guide the people, artefacts and natural resources within it. Breakdown is in fact explained in terms of these components’ inability to get the system what it needs. The integrity of the system was finally compromised in the later fourth century BCE by three closely related factors: first, there was the increasing international pressure, especially due to the Battle of Chaironeia, the Lamian War and the installation of the oligarchy of Demetrios of Phaleron – events that did not encourage involvement in the already risky mining business. Second, the market was flooded with silver and gold looted during the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander, causing the metal to be devalued. Third, the production of silver became harder and harder over time, as even low-grade ore deposits became exhausted.
We can also see material evidence of this breakdown in the archaeological and epigraphic record. The mine leases indicate that the system started to crumble in the course of the last quarter of the fourth century, with the last one dating to 307/6 BCE. Although textual sources suggest a rather abrupt ending, this is harder to deduce from archaeology. Albeit on a smaller scale, silver production seems to have continued, and evidence for the continuous occupation of workshops can be observed until the early third century BCE. This is demonstrated by several workshops in the wider Thorikos, such as the Zoridis (Zoridis 1980: 75–84), Skitzeri (Oikonomakou 1996: 125–33) and Kavodokano workshops (Oikonomakou 1996: 133–9). The same goes for the Ari workshops located more to the north of the Laurion region (Tsaimou 2005; 2008: 435–52). Within this context, it makes sense that an early third-century BCE monetary hoard was uncovered at Thorikos: whoever placed it there would have been aware of the region’s growing instability.20
Little evidence of mining has been found after this time – with the exception of the second century BCE and the late Roman period – but it is clear that the same level of activity was never reached again. The activity we observe in later periods is indicative of new systems that, though they probably shared the same teleological goal of raising revenue, differed substantially in terms of the social groups, technologies and natural resources they comprised. The nature of mining and metallurgy crucially changed. In addition to being much more scattered, late Roman (possibly also second-century BCE) miners mainly acquired silver through the reprocessing of litharge and scoriae,21 which supports the notion that the Laurion ore deposits were no longer considered a viable source of silver (Mussche 1998: 65). Due to this lethal reverse salient, the Laurion system died and the oncevibrant towns of Thorikos and Brauron, a city located more to its north, became ‘now only names’ (Pomponius Mela II, 45–6).
3.2.3 Actor–network theory
ANT differs from both SCOT and LTS in that it emphasises both human and non-human agency in the development of technologies. Within the Laurion network, this means that technological artefacts (e.g. ore washeries) and environmental elements (e.g. silver ores and rivulets) exercised as much agency on their human counterparts as the latter did on them. They were able to do so because all of these actants existed within a heterogeneous network and derived meaning from their juxtaposition. The ore washeries meant nothing without the silver, and the entrepreneurs, Athenian state and slaves meant nothing without these inanimate technologies and substances. But this seamless web, to use a term familiar to all three SCOTS fields, was merely a simplified version of reality within the minds of human actors that would change when forced to by incompatible events.
It is difficult to reconstruct such simplifications with the little textual evidence we have about the mines, particularly during the fifth century BCE. Nevertheless, the three available fragments all point to an image of abundant silver resources. Both Herodotus (7.144) and Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 22.7) refer to the windfall connected with the discovery of the third contact, a matter that seems to resonate with Aeschylus’ description of the mines as ‘a fountain of silver’ (Persians 238). If we treat this model as consistent with the state of the world prior to the first problem we encountered with SCOT, and prior to the first critical problem that we addressed with LTS, then we can use it as a first step in explaining its downfall and replacement by successive models.
The worldview alluded to by these authors was challenged by a material reality, namely the depletion of high-grade ore bodies, triggering a crisis and forcing human actors to rethink their image of the world. The subsequent switch to refining low-grade ores changed the respective meanings of all actants in the network. The mines ceased to be a readily available fountain of silver, and became a challenge for any actant involved in their exploitation. The production process became significantly more labour-intensive due to the introduction of ore-dressing techniques. In total, 16 kg of ore had to be extracted to produce a 4 g drachma, corresponding to hardly 0.025 per cent of its original volume (Rihll 2001: 115). This new material reality is neatly described in Strabo’s Geography:
Demetrios [of Phaleron], he [i.e. Poseidonios] says, states in reference to the Attic silver mines, that the people dig as strenuously as if they expected to bring up Pluto himself. So Poseidonios implies that the energy and industry of the Turdetanian miners is similar, since they cut their shafts aslant and deep, and, as regards the streams that meet them in the shafts, oftentimes draw them off with the Egyptian screw. However, the whole affair, he says, is never the same for these miners as for the Attic miners; indeed, for the latter, mining is like a riddle: ‘What they took up,’ he says, “’they did not take, yet what they had, they lost’; but, for the Turdetanians, mining is profitable beyond measure, since one-fourth of the ore brought out by their copper-workers is pure copper, while some of their private adventurers who search for silver pick up within three days a Euboean talent of silver.22
In all likelihood, the riddle mentioned refers to Rihll’s calculations and the fact that the absolute bulk of the exploited ores had to be discarded after processing.
This extreme change in the labour required to process ores is in fact an example of the agency of inanimate objects. The Athenians’ physical, political and economic activities in Laurion and outside it were conditioned by the availability of silver ores and the difficulties involved in processing them. By revealing a new aspect of its nature – that it was in fact not a fountain of silver – the ore confronted the Athenians with a reality that had to be accommodated by the construction of a new actor network.
It remains uncertain when exactly the old worldview was replaced, but it is beyond doubt that human actors had a significantly different representation of the mines during the fourth century BCE and had set up a new network by that time. Apart from the archaeological evidence – which overwhelmingly dates to the fourth century BCE – this is also deducible from the textual sources. Although Xenophon stubbornly clings to the idea of an inexhaustible ore supply in order to make his case in his pamphlet Poroi,23 the general opinion about the mines had obviously shifted. In fact, there seems to have been a general hesitance to get involved in the mining business. In Poroi 4.28–9, Xenophon hints that people were less willing to start up a mining business than they used to be because of the high risks involved. This is also echoed in Hypereides’ fourth oration (4.36) and, indirectly, in the mine leases, which only testify to five cases of new (and thus risky) mine cuttings or kainotomia (Crosby 1950: 198–9) during this time.24 Although it is not entirely clear how, it does seem that the state managed to alter this trend and attract more people into mining. The leases increased in frequency sharply over the fourth century BCE, an image that seems to be mirrored in the archaeological remains. The new network clearly served Athens as an adequate model of their reality for several more decades – at least until they encountered the political, economic and environmental problems discussed at the end of the previous section.
4 CONCLUSION
This chapter has explored the use of SCOTS in classical technology studies. SCOTS offers a valuable addition to current technology research particularly because of its scope: whereas traditional approaches have focused mainly on the economy in the study of technological development, SCOTS stresses the interplay of a variety of factors – such as economic, political, environmental and social ones – to explain such changes. This enables a more balanced, contextualised interpretation of technological change.
I illustrated the interpretative power of SCOTS by using it to address two unhealthy tendencies in current research: that of ‘blackboxing’ the Laurion, and that of interpreting the silver production activities that occurred there in purely technical terms. Addressing the first tendency requires delving inside the box and shedding light on the myriad factors that were really at play; in doing so, it becomes clear that technological change in classical Athens was ultimately a social process. From the Final Neolithic onwards, changes in the silver-production process were made through continuous negotiation between social actors and their environments, which included an increasing demand for silver, the depletion of ore bodies, water scarcity and so on. Addressing the second tendency requires embracing these different kinds of evidence, and incorporating them into historical interpretations. As Laurion’s history makes clear, ore washeries and cisterns themselves could do nothing to alleviate social and economic hardship. The real solutions were the work of social actors, who used mine leases, spatial organisation techniques and other methods to trigger successive breakthroughs in silver production. Social processes such as these were quintessential to the survival of the industry, not to mention the Athenian city-state that relied upon it.
SCOTS is not only useful for understanding technological change in the field of metallurgy. Research on shipping and warfare, for example – areas that were of huge importance in classical times – could benefit greatly as well. I encourage scholars to focus more on the social aspects of these and other technologies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Denis Morin for permission to reproduce the drawing of the beneficiation process from Morin 2005.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aperghis, G. G. (1997) ‘A reassessment of the Laurion mining lease records’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 42: 1–20.
Ardaillon, E. (1897), Les mines du Laurion, Paris.
Bijker, W. E., T. P. Hughes and T. Pinch (eds) (2012), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, anniversary edn, Cambridge, MA.
Bingen, J. (1973), ‘Le trésor monétaire Thorikos 1969’, in H. F. Mussche et al. (eds), Thorikos VI (1969): Rapport préliminaire sur la sixième campagne de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de Zesde Opgravingscampagne, Ghent: 7–59.
Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (2000), The Social Life of Information, Boston.
Callon, M. (2012), ‘Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis’, in W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T. P. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, anniversary edn, Cambridge, MA: 77–97.
Christesen, P. (2003), ‘Economic rationalism in fourth century BCE Athens’, Greece & Rome 50: 31–56.
Conophagos, C. (1980), Le Laurion antique et la technique grecque de la production de l’argent, Athens.
Conophagos, C. and H. Badécas (1974), ‘Αι δεξαμεναί ύδατος της αρχαίας μεταλλουργίας εις το Λαύριον και το είδοκόν στεγανοποιητικόν επίστρωμα τούτων’, Praktika tis en Athinais Archaiologikis Etaireias 49: 251–61.
Crosby, M. (1950), ‘The leases of the Laureion mines’, Hesperia 19: 189–297.
Crosby, M. (1957), ‘More fragments of mining leases from the Athenian agora’, Hesperia 26: 1–23.
Cuomo, S. (2007), Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity, Cambridge.
Davies, O. (1935), Roman Mines in Europe, Oxford.
Dosi, G. (1984), Technical Change and Industrial Transformation, London.
Drachmann, A. G. (1932), Ancient Oil Mills and Presses, Copenhagen.
Ellis Jones, J. (1985), ‘Laurion: Agrileza, 1977–1983: Excavations at a silver-mine site’, Archaeological Reports 31 (1984–5): 106–23.
Finley, M. I. (1965), ‘Technical innovation and economic progress in the ancient world’, The Economic History Review 18: 29–45.
Finley, M. I. (1973), The Ancient Economy, Berkeley. Forbes, R. J. (1955–64), Studies in Ancient Technology, 9 vols, Leiden.
Greene, K. (1986), The Archaeology of the Roman Economy, Berkeley.
Greene, K. (2000), ‘Technological innovation and economic progress in the ancient world: M. I. Finley re-considered’, The Economic History Review 53: 29–59.
Greene, K. (2004), ‘Archaeology and technology’, in J. Bintliff (ed.), A Companion to Archaeology, London: 155–73.
Greene, K. (2008), ‘Historiography and theoretical approaches’, in J. P. Oleson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Technology and Engineering in the Classical world, Oxford: 62–90.
Harris, E. M. (2001), ‘Workshop, marketplace and household: The nature of technical specialization in classical Athens and its influence on economy and society’, in P. Cartledge (ed.), Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece, London: 67–99.
Hopper, R. J. (1961), ‘The mines and miners of ancient Athens’, Greece & Rome 8: 138–51.
Hughes, T. P. (1979), ‘Emerging themes in the history of technology’, Technology and Culture20: 697–711.
Hughes, T. P. (1983), Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930, Baltimore.
Johnston, R. (1972), ‘The internal structure of technology’, in P. Halmos (ed.), The Sociology of Science, Keele: 117–30.
Kakavoyianni, O., K. Douni and F. Nezeri (2008), ‘Silver metallurgical finds dating from the end of the Final Neolithic period until the Middle Bronze Age in the area of the Mesogeia’, in I. Tzachili (ed.), Aegean Metallurgy in the Bronze Age: Proceedings of an International Symposium held at the University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece, on November 19–21 2004, Athens: 45–57.
Kakavoyiannis, E. C. (1989), ‘Αρχαιολογικές έρευνες στην Λαυρεωτική γιά την ανακάλυψη μεταλλευτικών έργων και μεταλλουργικών εγκαταστάσεων των προκλασικών χρόνων’, Archaiologika Analekta ex Athinon 22: 71–88.
Kakavoyiannis, E. C. (1989–91), ‘Πέρι του “τύπου ΙΙ” των αρχαίων ορθογωνίων πλυντηρίων των μεταλλευμάτων της Λαυρεωτικής’, Archaiologikon Deltion 44–6: 1–20.
Kakavoyiannis, E. C. (2001), ‘The silver ore-processing workshops of the Laurion region’, Annual of the British School in Athens 96: 365–80.
Kakavoyiannis, E. C. (2005), Μέταλλα εργασιμα και συγκεχωρημένα: Η οργανωση
της εκμεταλλευσης του ορυκτού πλούτου της Λαυρεωτικής από την Αθηναϊκή Δημοκρατία, Athens.
Kroll, J. H. (2009), ‘What about coinage?’, in J. Ma, N. Papazarkadas and R. Parker (eds), Interpreting the Athenian Empire, London: 195–209.
Kroll, J. H. (2011), ‘The reminting of Athenian silver coinage, 353 bc’, Hesperia 80: 229–59.
Krysko, W. W. (1988), ‘Possible composition of early ores at Thorikos’, in J. Ellis Jones (ed.), Aspects of Ancient Mining and Metallurgy: Acta of a British School at Athens Centenary Conference at Bangor, 1986, Bangor: 88–92.
Langdon, M. K. (1991), ‘Leases of public lands’, The Athenian Agora 19: 45–143.
Law, J. (2012), ‘Technology and heterogeneous engineering: The case of Portuguese expansion’, in W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T. J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, anniversary edn, Cambridge, MA: 105–28.
Layton, E. (1977), ‘Conditions of technological development’, in I. Spiegel-Rösing and D. De Solla Price (eds), Science, Technology and Society: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective, London: 197–222.
Marinos, G. P. and W. E. Petrascheck (1956), Λαύριον, Athens.
Millett, P. (2000), ‘The economy’, in R. Osborne (ed.), Classical Greece 500–323 BCE, Oxford: 23–51.
Millett, P. (2001), ‘Productive to some purpose? The problem of ancient economic growth’, in D. J. Mattingly and J. Salmon (eds), Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World, London: 17–48.
Mishara, J. (1989), ‘The plaster of the ore washing structures at Laurion’, in Y. Maniatis (ed.), Archaeometry: Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium, Athens: 191–205.
Moreno, A. (2003), ‘Athenian bread-baskets: The grain-tax law of 374/3 BC reinterpreted’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 145: 97–106.
Morin, D., and A. Photiades (2005), Les mines du Laurion: La puissance d’Athènes, Cannes..
Morris, I. (1998), ‘Remaining invisible: The archaeology of the excluded in classical Athens’, in R. Joshel and S. Murnaghan (eds), Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations, London: 193–220.
Morris, I. (2004), ‘Economic growth in ancient Greece’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160: 709–42.
Mussche, H. F. (1967), ‘Le quartier industriel: L’insula 1’, in H. F. Mussche et al. (eds), Thorikos II (1964): Rapport préliminaire sur la deuxième campagne de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de Tweede Opgravingscampagne, Brussels: 47–62.
Mussche, H. F. (1968), ‘Le quartier industriel’, in H. F. Mussche et al. (eds), Thorikos I (1963): Rapport préliminaire sur la première campagne de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de Eerste Opgravingscampagne, Brussels: 87–104.
Mussche, H. F. (1998), Thorikos, a Mining Town in Ancient Attika, Ghent.
Mussche, H. F. and C. Conophagos (1973), ‘Ore washing establishments and furnaces at Megala Pevka and Demoliaki’, in H. F. Mussche et al. (eds), Thorikos
VI (1969): Rapport préliminaire sur la sixième campagne de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de Zesde Opgravingscampagne, Brussels: 61–72.
Negris, P. (1881), ‘Laveries anciennes du Laurium’, Annales des Mines 20: 160–4.
Nicolet-Pierre, H., J. N. Barrandon and J. Y. Calvez (1985), ‘Monnaies archaïques d’Athènes sous Pisistrate et les Pisistratides (c. 545–c. 510). II: Recherches sur la composition métallique des Wappenmünzen’, Revue Numismatique 6: 23–44.
Ober, J. (2008), Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens, Princeton.
Ober, J. (2010), ‘Wealthy Hellas’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 140 (2): 241–86.
Ober, J. (2015), The Rise and Fall of Classical Athens, Princeton.
Oikonomakou, M. (1996), ‘Δύο αρχαία εργαστήρια στην περιοχή του Θορικού’, Archaiologikon Deltion 51–2: 125–40.
Oleson, J. P. (1984), Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices: The History of a Technology, Toronto.
Oleson, J. P. (ed.) (2008), The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, Oxford.
Photos-Jones, E. and J. Ellis Jones (1994), ‘The building and industrial remains at Agrileza, Laurion (4th C BC) and their contribution to the workings at the site’, BSA 89: 307–58.
Picard, O. (2001), ‘Le découverte des gisements du Laurion et les débuts de la chouette’, Revue Belge de Numismatique et de Sigillographie 147: 1–10.
Pinch, T. J. and W. E. Bijker (2012), ‘The social construction of facts and artifacts: Or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other’, in W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T. J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, anniversary edn, Cambridge, MA: 11–44.
Protopapas, S., A. Kondogeorgis and M. Edge (2000), ‘Αρχαία υδατοστεγή επιχρίσματα των μεταλλευτικών εργαστηρίων στο Λαύριο’, Archaiologia 77: 71–6.
Rehren, T. (2005), ‘The silver mines of ancient Athens’, Current World Archaeology 11: 24–31.
Rehren, T., D. Vanhove, H. F. Mussche and M. Oikonomakou (1999), ‘Litharge from Laurion: A medical and metallurgical commodity from South Attika’, Antiquité Classique 68: 299–308.
Rehren, T., D. Vanhove and H. F. Mussche (2002), ‘Ores from the ore washeries in the Lavriotiki’, Metalla 9 (1), 27–46.
Rihll, T. E. (2001), ‘Making money in classical Athens’, in D. J. Mattingly and J. Salmon (eds), Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World, London: 115–42.
Servais, J. (1967), ‘Les fouilles sur le haut du Vélatouri’, in H. F. Mussche et al. (eds), Thorikos III (1965): Rapport préliminaire sur la troisième campagne de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de Derde Opgravingscampagne, Brussels: 9–30.
Shipton, K. (2000), Leasing and Lending: The Cash Economy in Fourth-Century BCE Athens, London.
Singer, C., E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and T. I. Williams (1954–8), A History of Technology, 5 vols, Oxford.
Spitaels, P. (1984), ‘The early Helladic period in mine no. 3 (theatre sector)’, in H. F. Mussche, J. Bingen, J. Servais and P. Spitaels (eds), Thorikos VIII (1972/1976): Rapport préliminaire sur les 9e, 10e, 11e et 12e campagnes de fouilles – Voorlopig Verslag over de 9e, 10e, 11e et 12e Opgravingscampagne, Ghent: 151–74.
Stroud, R. S. (1998), The Athenian Grain-Tax Law of 374/3 bc, Princeton.
Tsaimou, C. G. (2005), ‘The cyclic plane sluices for the ore mineral processing in the Ari site of Lavreotiki’, Mineral Wealth 137: 19–28.
Tsaiomou, C. G. (2008), ‘Νέα στοιχεία για την εμπλουτιστική διαδικασία των αργυρούχων μεταλλευμάτων στο αρχαίο Λαύριο’<http://www.emena.gr/wpcontent/uploads/2008/11/435–452_tsaimou.pdf>.
van Alfen, P. G. (2012), ‘The coinage of Athens, sixth to first century BCE’, in W. E. Metcalf (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, Oxford: 88–104.
Van Liefferinge, K. (2018), ‘Water and workshops: Inequality among mining sites in ancient Laurion (Greece)’, in E. Holt (ed.), Water and Power in Past Societies, New York.
Van Liefferinge, K., M. Van den Berg, C. Stal, R. F. Docter, A. De Wulf and N. Verhoest (2014), ‘Reconsidering the role of Thorikos within the Laurion silver mining area (Attica, Greece) through hydrological analyses’, Journal of Archaeological Science 41: 272–84.
White, K. D. (1984), Greek and Roman Technology, New York.
Wikander, Ö. (1984), Exploitation of Water-Power or Technological Stagnation? A Reappraisal of the Productive Forces in the Roman Empire, Lund.
Wikander, Ö. (ed.) (2000), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Leiden.
Wilson, A. (2000), ‘Industrial uses of water’, in Ö. Wikander (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Leiden: 127–49.
Wilson, A. (2002), ‘Machines, power and the ancient economy’, Journal of Roman Studies 92: 1–32.
Zoridis, P. (1980), ‘Εργαστηρίου εμπλουτισμού μεταλλεύματος στο Θορικό’, Archaiologike Ephemeris: 75–84.
1 A few of the most prominent books and papers are Greene 2000; Wikander 2000; Wilson 2002; Oleson 2008).
2 Kevin Greene has drawn my attention to the potential of SCOTS for the study of classical technology in two brief references (2004; 2008).
3 Litharge fragments have been found at Koropi, Lambrika, Merenda Markopoulou, Velatouri Kerateas and Thorikos (mine no. 3 as well at the top of the Velatouri Hill) (Kakavoyianni et al. 2008: 45–51).
4 Servais 1967: 9–30; Mussche 1998: 61.
5 Nicolet-Pierre et al. 1985: 30–2; Kroll 2009: 195; Van Alfen 2012: 91.
6 The discovery of the third contact is commonly dated to 483/2 BCE, but a more likely chronology has been suggested by Ardaillon 1897: 136, Conophagos 1980: 94 and Picard 2001: 1–10. Considering the extreme labour involved in the digging of mining shafts, Ardaillon and Conophagos suggested that the discovery of this vein should have occurred at least five to ten years earlier. Picard 2001: 1–10 takes this one step further and defends the view that the archaic owls were already manufactured with silver from the third contact, pushing back this date to approximately 520–515 BCE.
7 Kakavoyiannis 1989; 2001; 2005.
8 The washeries were dated based on poor and scattered pottery finds (Kakavoyiannis 1989; 2001).
9 I am greatly indebted to Guy Dierkens and Thomas Pieters for assisting me during several fieldwalks in the summer of 2011, 2012 and 2013.
10 There is one exception: washery no. 1 at Thorikos (Mussche 1967; 1968; 1998).
11 Conophagos and Badécas 1974: 254–60, 255–6, 273; Mishara 1989: 191–205; Protopapas et al. 2000: 71–6. I had X-ray fluorescence and chemical analyses performed on a piece of mortar from cistern no. 1 at Thorikos, which further confirmed these authors’ results.
12 During a fieldwalk at the Bertseko site (summer of 2012) I observed wells carved out in the middle of the riverbed, an action that would only make sense if the rivulet had run dry at some point in the year.
13 Type II washeries are rarer, but several of them have been found and described by Kakavoyiannis 1989 at Spitharopousi and in the proximity of the EBO Factory. Furthermore, Zoridis 1980 has described two more in a workshop in the Potami Valley (close to Thorikos).
14 The Skitzeri (Oikonomakou 1996) and Kordellas workshops.
15 Workshop A at Agrileza (Ellis Jones 1985).
16 Recorded at the Aghia Triada excavation and the Asklepiakon (workshop 2) in the Soureza Valley. Workshop D at Demoliaki has oblong settling tanks (Mussche and Conophagos 1973).
17 Many Laurion slaves had their roots in Thrace, an area known for its mineral resources. It would not be unreasonable to suppose that these workers used their experience in metallurgical techniques to improve work processes and techniques in Laurion. See also Morris 1998 on Thracian slaves in Attica.
18 Conophagos 1980: 214–15; Christesen 2003: 39–46.
19 This issue is extensively discussed in Van Liefferinge et al. 2014; Van Liefferinge 2018.
20 Bingen 1973.
21 Slag left after smelting.
22 Strabo 3.2.9, trans. H. L. Jones, Loeb.
23 Xenophon wanted to persuade the Athenians to get involved in the mining business in order to raise revenues for the state.
24 Crosby 1950: no. 28, l. 6; no. 32, ll. 5–6; no. 33, l. 2; no. 35, l. 3; no. 38, ll. 1 and 8.
