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Archeologists working in Thorikos, Greece, have found a pristine silver mine that has lain untouched for over 5,000 years. Thorikos on southern Attica – the peninsula that juts into the Aegean Sea – was a site for ancient lead and silver mining. In a post on Sunday, New Historian says the mining complex, discovered by French scientists from the University of Lorraine and the UMR National Center for Scientific Research 5608 of Toulouse, has infrastructure unlike any seen from the time period of around 3,200 BC. "The Greek mine is exceptional not only for its scope but for its layout...

Underground, the morphology and the organization of the mining infrastructure allow to distinguish several phases of activity. The archaeological data gathered and observed during the latest phase of the 2015 campaign: pottery, stone hammers made of a volcano-sedimentary rock quarry, point towards a high dating for the earliest phase of mining activities in the area (Late Neolithic / Early Helladic: around 3200 BC). If future research confirms this hypothesis, the chronological framework of mining in the region of Attica and the Aegean world would be profoundly modified. The Classical phase is by far the most perceptible; omnipresent, it is remarkable...