For the Library Museum Zamora
This time we left the province, and we approach Médulas in the region of Bierzo in León province, to visit a spectacular landscape that was included by Unesco in List World Heritage in 1997 for being a particularly representative the history of mankind , categorized as cultural landscape, that is, a landscape resulting from the interaction between man and nature over time.
houses the largest gold mine in the Roman Empire, which operated about 160 years, between I and III century AD The gold that was extracted from these mines was very important to the Romans. Not provide direct benefits to those working in them and that Rome was the sole recipient of the extracted metal. Mines were considered imperial resources, therefore the benefits were intended for imperial treasury or treasure.
The reason for the interest of Roma in these mines is in the role that gold played in the monetary system established by the Emperor Augustus, who introduced a single monetary system in the Empire aureus and the denarius. The golden, a piece of gold weighing 7.8 grams , stood next to the denarius (silver piece 3.9 grams) at the head of the new system, while providing a new reference value and prestige. State control over the gold mines ensured regular supplies of metal to golden coin, giving this metal a strategic value in political terms, beyond its high intrinsic value.
For nearly two centuries of the Roman state took Médulas and other mines of the Northwest much of the gold needed for minting the currency. But in the third century coins and value changed mine stopped working.
multitude of literature exists on the archaeological site of The Médulas, at your disposal in Library Museum Zamora
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