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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The ancient mine-workings of southern Attica, although less photogenic than the Parthenon and other better-known buildings of antiquity, provide some of the most fascinating remains of Classical Greece. Their density upon the ground and state of preservation, except where they are being obliterated by modern mining or quarrying operations, are outstanding, and even a brief visit made without specialist knowledge cannot but send one away with a desire to know more about them.
page 19 note 1 I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Classical Sub-Committee of the Gilbert Murray Trust Fund for the generous grant which enabled me to visit Greece at all; to Professor R. J. Hopper for help and encouragement both in Greece and in the subsequent writing of this article; and to Mr. L. E. Carroll of Macmillan & Co. for his assistance with preparing the photographs for reproduction. For the account of the technical details I have relied largely upon Ardaillon, E., Les Mines du Laurion dans l'antiquité (Paris, 1897).Google Scholar
page 19 note 2 See Diodoros' account (iii. 13. 1.) of these processes in Egyptian mining.
page 20 note 1 This process and processes like it are not, of course, confined either to Greece or to the ancient world. Strabo (iii. 2. io) records all too briefly a similar process used in Spanish mining, and today it is still occasionally possible to see such processes being employed in Cornwall.
page 21 note 1 Cf. Pliny, , H.N. xxxvi. 23.173Google Scholar: ‘utilius geminas cisternas esse, ut priore uitia considant, atque per colum in proximam transeat pura aqua.’