Mines Database
About the database
This database provides information on the mines of the Roman empire, principally those producing the main metals used in the production of coinage: gold, silver, copper and lead. Some iron mines have also been included, although the coverage of iron mines cannot yet be regarded as systematic. We do hope to have included the known gold, silver and copper mines, although we would always be grateful to receive notification of new discoveries, or of omissions or errors in our database.
Versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the database were compiled by Andrew Wilson and by Dr Hannah Friedman during her employment as an OXREP Research Assistant. Version 2.0 contains information on 551 mines.
Since 2018 the database has been entirely revised by Andrew Wilson, with 1399 mines, and is now available as Version 3.0, in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet.
For each mine, information is recorded on: Name, Mining Area, Country, [Roman] Province, Longitude, Latitude, Date range, Metals produced (Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Iron), and Exploitation technology (Underground, Opencast, Hydraulic, Hushing, Ground Sluicing, Ruina Montium, Rake/Comb; Gold Washing; Other).
It should be noted that dating of Roman mining is difficult, and little or no reliable information is available for most sites. For gold mines in Dacia, broad date ranges have been assigned based on the Roman occupation of the province.
The database is available for download as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, so that users can analyse or map the data themselves. For display of spatial data in GIS systems, open the Excel spreadsheet and then save it as a .csv file in UTF-8 format (to preserve accented characters). [Unfortunately the web content management system used on this website no longer allows the upload of .csv files.]
Download the OxREP Mines Database Version 3.0 as a Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) file:
Citing the database
To cite this database please use the following reference:
Wilson, A. I. (2025). Database of Roman mines, Version 3.0 (OxREP databases). Accessed [date]: https://oxrep.web.ox.ac.uk/mines-database
Older versions of the database
An older, superseded, version is kept available on the old OxREP website for archive purposes:
Wilson, A. I. and Friedman, H. (2018). Database of Roman mines, Version 2.0 (OxREP databases). Accessed [date]: https://oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk/databases/mines_database
Old visualisations for Version 2.0 of this database with maps and charts of the mine data, are also available for archive purposes, but the data there should be regarded as superseded.
