"Szegény Tacitus nem tudta, hogy Bittanniából nem hoztak Rómába aranyat, mert nem volt..."

Aha.

Római ólom-, ezüst- és aranybányászat Britanniában Tacitus korában.

http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/raw_mining.htm

"The lead mines and extracting silver
Within six years of the invasion of 43AD., the Mendip lead mines were in full production. By 70AD., Britain was the biggest supplier of lead and silver to the empire. It reached such a level that the Spanish lodged a complaint with the emperor as their lead trade had fallen to such a low level. The emperor responded by setting limits for Britain's production, but it didn't affect production."

Az aranybányászatról:

"Mining the gold
It's not a well known fact, but Britain does have deposits of gold in it's landscape. Panning for gold in alluvial gravel had been carried out in streams in Cornwall and Scotland for hundreds of years before the Romans arrived. The large scale mining of gold was instigated at the only gold mine in Britain in Dolaucothi, Wales. The works can still be seen near the village of Pumpsaint

An ingenious method of finding gold

When the Romans conquered Wales in 70AD., they immediately set to work building reservoirs on mountains in the Cothi valley. A seven mile long aqueduct was built to move the water into these man made lakes. Then all together the water was released down the mountainside which created an avalanche consisting of water, plant life and top soil. It was a massive project and must have taken many months to complete. The end result was worthwhile. Once the surface layer had been removed, there was just bare rock and exposed seams of gold.

Excavating the gold

They wasted no time in putting the slave labour to work digging the shafts that followed the seams deep into the mountains. Initially the gold was extracted by the open cast method where it was dug from the surface. As they when followed the seam deeper into the rock other methods had to be used.

The rock was tough so the Romans used a process of fire-setting to break up the rock and so make it easier to remove. Fire-setting was the process of building a bonfire of wood in the shaft and raising the temperature to a high degree. Then cold water was poured down the shaft. This sudden drop in temperature on one part of the rock caused it to crack violently and break away from rock beneath which was still extremely hot..

The miners than began to use picks to break this rock up into pieces that would fit into a large wooden container which was hauled up to the surface. This vessel was also used to transport the diggers down the shaft and back up after the day's work.

This work was hazardous in many ways. The shafts could be over 100ft (33m) deep so the miners often worked in near total darkness, the only light being from an oil lamp the miner carried."