Historical mining in Croatia - valuable examples for European MineHeritage project

MineHeritage – “Tracing and learning from ancient materials and mining technology” is a running Wider Society Learning project with the main goal to raise society’s awareness of usage and need for raw materials. Duration of the project is three years (1.1.2019 – 31.12.2021) with total budget of 974, 245.00 € founded by European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) in the frame of Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) Raw Materials. Project consortium consists of 13 partners from eleven European countries, with Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering as one of them. Leading partner is New University of Lisbon - Faculty of Sciences and Technology (FCT NOVA) from Portugal. The scope of the MineHeritage project is wider understanding of the mining technologies and raw materials uses and trades in different regions of Europe during specific historical periods (since prehistory) with the resulting impact on development of European society. The objectives of the projects are following: (1) to engage dissemination approaches to cross-generational target audiences on mining and raw materials as a unifying common ground for Europe through an historical perspective ; (2) to promote synergies with other actors such as schools, museums, local administration and mining companies ; (3) to involve society in raw materials and mining through knowledge, (4) to build multicultural bridges between different regions in Europe ; (5) to stimulate the debate on environmental sustainability in mining and raw materials sector ; (6) to develop popular science materials and organise popular science events ; and (7) to raise awareness of own cultural heritage and history of a region. End users of the project are school age children (13-19 years) and young adults (20-45 years). Expected project outcomes are: (1) database with information on ancient mining sites, abandoned mines, classified heritage sites related to mining from different EU countries participating in the project ; (2) popular science materials (booklets and videos on specific mining sites) ; (3) interactive multilevel game with historical and regional perspective of mining and raw materials in Europe ; (4) mobile application for cultural tourism involving historical mining sites ; (5) social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube) dedicated to the dissemination of historical mining sites, events and news ; (6) promotion of popular science materials (talks, lectures, discussion events, excursions) ; (7) collaboration with local administration, tourist offices, schools, museums, as well as with other KIC running programs. The emphasis of the presentation will be on up-to-date information related to Croatian historical mining sites collected for the database, promotional activities of the Croatian team as well as established collaborations. Croatia has a long mining tradition and heritage. Exploitation of natural and crushed stone together with sand and gravel for civil engineering purposes has represented the most important raw material exploited in Croatia throughout our history to the present days. Although, there is no potential in Croatian ore deposits nowadays, there were times in the past when metal production (Ag, Zn, Pb, Cu, Fe) was significant (e.g. Trgovska gora ; Rude). There are also several distinct historical mining sites of non-metallic minerals (e.g. sulphur in Radoboj ; bauxite in the Mirna valley in Istria). Notwithstanding out of interest for KIC Raw Material, we will present several coal mines, especially when they were related to mining of other commodities (e.g. coal and zinc in Ivanec). Historical examples of technologies related to mining in Croatia will also perfectly contribute to the overall project (e.g. Radoboj machine for sulphur refinement shown on Figure 1 ; blast furnace from Bešlinec). Alongside traditional promotional materials as brochures and videos, important localities will be promoted using geocaches (traditional and EarthCaches).