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128-558: The Museum building is the former mining hospital of the Rio Tinto Company Limited . The building that houses the museum was originally designed in 1921 as a hospital for the Rio Tinto Company Limited (RTC) staff, and was used for that purpose between 1927 and 1983. In 1970 the south pavilion of the building was converted into social security . In 1987, the Rio Tinto Foundation was created, whose objectives included

256-505: A Eurasian steppe population). One 2018 study of mitochondrial lineages in Sardinia concluded that the Phoenicians were "inclusive, multicultural and featured significant female mobility", with evidence of indigenous Sardinians integrating "peacefully and permanently" with Semitic Phoenician settlers. The study also found evidence suggesting that south Europeans may have likewise settled in

384-436: A Hellenization policy, whereby Hellenic culture, religion, and sometimes language were spread or imposed across conquered peoples. However, Hellenisation was not enforced most of the time and was just a language of administration until his death. This was typically implemented through the founding of new cities, the settlement of a Macedonian or Greek urban elite, and the alteration of native place names to Greek. However, there

512-461: A Punic term for 'Phoenicians', which may be reconstructed as * Pōnnīm . Since little has survived of Phoenician records or literature , most of what is known about their origins and history comes from the accounts of other civilizations and inferences from their material culture excavated throughout the Mediterranean. The scholarly consensus is that the Phoenicians' period of greatest prominence

640-552: A severe economic crisis that would eventually affect the business. From 1931 onwards, the mining basin went through a period of great labor and social conflict. The outbreak of the Civil War , in 1936, caused new difficulties for the company. From very early on, the revolt forces imposed embargoes on the production of pyrites or diverted exports to ports in Axis countries , especially to Nazi Germany. The German company Hisma-Rowak channeled

768-585: A "land of fnḫw ", fnḫw being the plural form of fnḫ , the Ancient Egyptian word for 'carpenter'. This "land of carpenters" is generally identified as Phoenicia, given that Phoenicia played a central role in the lumber trade of the Levant. As an exonym , fnḫw was evidently borrowed into Greek as φοῖνιξ , phoînix , which meant variably 'Phoenician person', ' Tyrian purple , crimson ' or ' date palm '. Homer used it with each of these meanings. The word

896-488: A Greek historian from Sicily c.  300 BC, places the foundation of Carthage in 814 BC, which is the date generally accepted by modern historians. Legend, including Virgil 's Aeneid , assigns the founding of the city to Queen Dido . Carthage would grow into a multi-ethnic empire spanning North Africa, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and southern Iberia, but would ultimately be destroyed by Rome in

1024-512: A claim that they came from Tylos and Arad ( Bahrain and Muharraq ). Some archaeologists working on the Persian Gulf have accepted these traditions and suggest a migration connected with the collapse of the Dilmun civilization c.  1750 BC. However, most scholars reject the idea of a migration; archaeological and historical evidence alike indicate millennia of population continuity in

1152-635: A complex and influential civilization. Their best known legacy is the world's oldest verified alphabet , whose origin was connected to the Proto-Sinaitic script , and which was transmitted across the Mediterranean and used to develop the Arabic script and Greek alphabet and in turn the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets . The Phoenicians are also credited with innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. Their international trade network

1280-619: A failed rebellion against Artaxerxes III , enlisting the help of the Egyptians, who were subsequently drawn into a war with the Persians. The resulting destruction of Sidon led to the resurgence of Tyre, which remained the dominant Phoenician city for two decades until the arrival of Alexander the Great. Phoenicia was one of the first areas to be conquered by Alexander the Great during his military campaigns across western Asia . Alexander's main target in

1408-590: A hundred sites remain to be excavated, while others that have been are yet to be fully analysed. The Middle Bronze Age was a generally peaceful time of increasing population, trade, and prosperity, though there was competition for natural resources. In the Late Bronze Age , rivalry between Egypt, the Mittani, the Hittites, and Assyria had a significant impact on Phoenician cities. The Canaanite culture that gave rise to

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1536-544: A major part of Phoenician wealth. The violet-purple dye derived from the hypobranchial gland of the Murex marine snail, once profusely available in coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea but exploited to local extinction. Phoenicians may have discovered the dye as early as 1750 BC. The Phoenicians established a second production center for the dye in Mogador , in present-day Morocco . The Phoenicians' exclusive command over

1664-647: A population coming from the North, related to ancient Anatolians or ancient South-Eastern Europeans (12–37%). The results show that a Steppe-like ancestry , typically found in Europeans, appears in the region starting from the Iron Age. The Phoenicians served as intermediaries between the disparate civilizations that spanned the Mediterranean and Near East, facilitating the exchange of goods and knowledge, culture, and religious traditions. Their expansive and enduring trade network

1792-513: A previous interventionist regime to move to a new one that greatly favored private initiative. But it was really the Ley de Bases de 29 de diciembre de 1868 sobre minas and the Ley de 19 de octubre de 1869 that favored the creation of private and industrial trading companies. Thus, on February 14, 1873, after an unsuccessful auction, the mines were acquired through direct sale by an international consortium created, among others, by three powerful families,

1920-457: A series of campaigns against neighboring states. The Phoenician city-states fell under his rule, forced to pay heavy tribute in money, goods, and natural resources. Initially, they were not annexed outright—they remained in a state of vassalage, subordinate to the Assyrians but allowed a certain degree of freedom. This changed in 744 BC with the ascension of Tiglath-Pileser III . By 738 BC, most of

2048-453: A single subversive shout, nor did they utter a provocation or an act that would disturb the troops or the Authorities. —"The events of Rio Tinto". Diario la Coalición Republicana , 1888. On February 4, 1888, shortly after the arrival of the new general manager Mr. William Rich, a demonstration of miners and farmers protesting against the fumes of the ''teleras'' and the poor working conditions

2176-803: A strike began in the Cuenca Minera that provoked the Civil Governor to station two companies of the General Pavía Regiment in Huelva, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ulpiano Sánchez. The following day, in spite of the mediation attempts of the Civil Guard , violent attempts take place, the City Council and the manager of the William Rich Company do not accept any of the conditions and probably alert

2304-529: Is already attested in Mycenaean Greek Linear B from the 2nd millennium BC, as po-ni-ki-jo . In those records, it means 'crimson' or 'palm tree' and does not denote a group of people. The name Phoenicians , like Latin Poenī (adj. poenicus , later pūnicus ), comes from Greek Φοινίκη , Phoiníkē . Poenulus , a Latin comedic play written in the early 2nd century BC, appears to preserve

2432-405: Is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization . Being a society of independent city states, the Phoenicians apparently did not have a term to denote the land of Phoenicia as a whole; instead, demonyms were often derived from the name of the city an individual hailed from (e.g., Sidonian for Sidon , Tyrian for Tyre , etc.) If

2560-596: Is credited with laying the foundations of an economically and culturally cohesive Mediterranean, which would be continued by the Greeks and especially the Romans. Phoenician ties with the Greeks ran deep. The earliest verified relationship appears to have begun with the Minoan civilization on Crete (1950–1450 BC), which together with the Mycenaean civilization (1600–1100 BC) is considered

2688-520: Is no record of Persian administrators governing the Phoenician city-states. Local Phoenician kings were allowed to remain in power and given the same rights as Persian satraps (governors), such as hereditary offices and minting their coins. The Phoenicians remained a core asset to the Achaemenid Empire, particularly for their prowess in maritime technology and navigation; they furnished the bulk of

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2816-467: Is presumed that they were buried under slag in one of the mines in the area. The tragedy, which caused national and even international commotion, can be considered as one of the first environmental demonstrations. Despite all this, the teleras were not banned in Spain until years later, because even though that same year a Royal Decree was issued by Minister José Luis Albareda which urged its disappearance, it

2944-437: Is regarded as a modern and artificial division. The Phoenicians, known for their prowess in trade, seafaring and navigation, dominated commerce across classical antiquity and developed an expansive maritime trade network lasting over a millennium. This network facilitated cultural exchanges among major cradles of civilization , such as Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The Phoenicians established colonies and trading posts across

3072-500: Is sometimes described as a "Phoenician renaissance". The Phoenician city-states filled the power vacuum caused by the Late Bronze Age collapse and created a vast mercantile network. The city-states during this time were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Aradus, Beirut, and Tripoli. The recovery of the Mediterranean economy can be credited to Phoenician mariners and merchants, who re-established long-distance trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia in

3200-533: The Archimedes' screw — because, when the phreatic level was exceeded, it was necessary to drain the numerous subsoil waters. Centuries later, the Almohads did not work much on the extraction of minerals (blue vitriol and green vitriol) but they worked on the extraction of different materials to create dyes. As early as 1556, the mines were about to be exploited again during the reign of Philip II , who needed to finance

3328-528: The Banco de España . The operation was approved by Franco on August 14 and cost £7.66 million (about 1000 million pesetas at the time). Two-thirds of the assets passed into the hands of Spanish private capital, although RTC would keep the remaining third. On October 28 of the same year, the Compañía Española de las Minas de Río Tinto (CEMRT) was incorporated, assuming ownership of the sites and facilities. For

3456-531: The Chalcolithic and by peoples such as Tartessians , Phoenicians and Romans , who extracted iron pyrites, copper, silver and other metals from them. As a result of the metallurgical operations, there is evidence that the Romans would have left more than fifteen million tons of slag in the Riotinto area during a period characterized by new extraction techniques with furnaces and new tools — such as norias or

3584-620: The Conservative Party for the districts of Huelva and Valverde del Camino with the idea that these, once elected deputies, would support the company in Madrid. In Huelva province, it developed similar initiatives. For instance, in 1890 it actively supported along with Tharsis a "mining" candidacy to the Provincial Deputation formed by José María Parejo Bécquer and Vicente Ferrer Ramírez Cruzado. The joint purpose of this initiative

3712-481: The Iron Age without interruption. It is believed that they self-identified as Canaanites and referred to their land as Canaan, indicating a continuous cultural and geographical association. The name Phoenicia is an ancient Greek exonym that did not correspond precisely to a cohesive culture or society as it would have been understood natively. Therefore, the division between Canaanites and Phoenicians around 1200 BC

3840-688: The Neolithic Revolution in the Levant . The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, even though the Ugaritic language does not belong to the Canaanite languages proper. The fourth-century BC Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Phoenicians had migrated from the Erythraean Sea around 2750 BC and the first-century AD geographer Strabo reports

3968-551: The Punic Wars (264–146 BC) before being rebuilt as a Roman city. As mercantile city-states concentrated along a narrow coastal strip of land, the Phoenicians lacked the size and population to support a large military. Thus, as neighboring empires began to rise, the Phoenicians increasingly fell under the sway of foreign rulers, who to varying degrees circumscribed their autonomy. The Assyrian conquest of Phoenicia began with King Shalmaneser III . He rose to power in 858 BC and began

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4096-666: The Rhone valley and coastal Massalia ". Strabo states that there was a highly lucrative Phoenician trade with Britain for tin via the Cassiterides , whose location is unknown but may have been off the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Phoenicia lacked considerable natural resources other than its cedar wood. Timber was probably the earliest and most lucrative source of wealth; neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia had adequate wood sources. Unable to rely solely on this limited resource,

4224-745: The Roman period , archaeological remains, mining machinery, a collection of minerals from the Iberian Pyrite Belt , etc. In the basement of the museum there is a reproduction of a subway mine from the Roman period, in a commitment to interpretation. Another of its rooms is dedicated to the historic Riotinto railway and has on display a variety of material, including several steam locomotives. 37°41′37″N 6°35′48″W  /  37.69354°N 6.59658°W  / 37.69354; -6.59658 Rio Tinto Company Limited The Rio Tinto Company Limited ( RTC )

4352-762: The Sociedad Minera y Metalúrgica de Peñarroya (SMMP) to supply about 19,000 tons of coal annually, relying on the railway network of the MZA . Several years later, in 1917, the SMMP and the RTC participated alongside other actors in the founding of the Sociedad Española de Construcciones Electromecánicas , a company that the Rio Tinto company supplied with significant quantities of copper for its later metallurgical treatment. Added to all this

4480-403: The unrestricted submarine warfare conducted by Germany severely disrupted the export of pyrite to the major North American market, that until then was very dependent on the mineral coming from Spain. Added to this was that international pyrite prices plummeted with the end of the war, reducing RTC's profits. The mining strike of 1920 led to massive layoffs and damaged the company's image among

4608-525: The 10th century BC. Early into the Iron Age , the Phoenicians established ports, warehouses, markets, and settlement all across the Mediterranean and up to the southern Black Sea. Colonies were established on Cyprus , Sardinia , the Balearic Islands , Sicily , and Malta , as well as the coasts of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Phoenician hacksilver dated to this period bears lead isotope ratios matching ores in Sardinia and Spain, indicating

4736-665: The Levant since at least the Bronze Age . More specifically, the research of geneticist Chris Tyler-Smith and his team at the Sanger Institute in Britain, who compared "sampled ancient DNA from five Canaanite people who lived 3,750 and 3,650 years ago" to modern people, revealed that 93 percent of the genetic ancestry of people in Lebanon came from the Canaanites (the other 7 percent was of

4864-424: The Levant, including northern Phoenicia, were annexed; only Tyre and Byblos, the most powerful city-states, remained tributary states outside of direct Assyrian control. Tyre, Byblos, and Sidon all rebelled against Assyrian rule. In 721 BC, Sargon II besieged Tyre and crushed the rebellion. His successor Sennacherib suppressed further rebellions across the region. During the seventh century BC, Sidon rebelled and

4992-793: The Mathesons, the Rothschilds and the Goldschimidt — owner of the Deutsche National Bank of Bremen. This consortium later found the Rio Tinto Company Limited, with a capital of six million pounds sterling . The purchase of the mines was accompanied by a concession from the State so that the British company could build a railroad linking Riotinto with the port of Huelva. Construction of the line

5120-571: The Mediterranean. Excavations of colonies in Spain suggest they also used the potter's wheel . Their exposure to a wide variety of cultures allowed them to manufacture goods for specific markets. The Iliad suggests Phoenician clothing and metal goods were highly prized by the Greeks. Specialized goods were designed specifically for wealthier clientele, including ivory reliefs and plaques, carved clam shells, sculpted amber, and finely detailed and painted ostrich eggs. The most prized Phoenician goods were fabrics dyed with Tyrian purple , which formed

5248-584: The Mediterranean; Carthage , a settlement in northwest Africa, became a major civilization in its own right in the seventh century BC. The Phoenicians were organized in city-states , similar to those of ancient Greece , of which the most notable were Tyre , Sidon , and Byblos . Each city-state was politically independent, and there is no evidence the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality. While most city-states were governed by some form of kingship , merchant families probably exercised influence through oligarchies . After reaching its zenith in

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5376-493: The Ministry of Finance the continued fraud that the company had committed between 1923 and 1925. The chairman of the board of directors, Auckland Geddes , tried to reach a reserved agreement with the then minister, José Calvo Sotelo , but the latter rejected this possibility and preferred to take the matter through the courts. A tough legal battle ensued, resulting in a first sentence to pay 750,000 pounds sterling in taxes based on

5504-551: The Near East, the Phoenicians apparently made the pragmatic calculation of "[yielding] themselves to the Persians". Most of the Levant was consolidated by Cyrus into a single satrapy (province) and forced to pay a yearly tribute of 350 talents , which was roughly half the tribute that was required of Egypt and Libya. The Phoenician area was later divided into four vassal kingdoms—Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos—which were allowed considerable autonomy. Unlike in other empire areas, there

5632-573: The Persian Levant was Tyre, now the region's largest and most important city. It capitulated after a roughly seven month siege , during which many of its citizens fled to Carthage. Tyre's refusal to allow Alexander to visit its temple to Melqart , culminating in the killing of his envoys, led to a brutal reprisal: 2,000 of its leading citizens were crucified and a puppet ruler was installed. The rest of Phoenicia easily came under his control, with Sidon surrendering peacefully. Alexander's empire had

5760-709: The Persian fleet during the Greco-Persian Wars of the late fifth century BC. Phoenicians under Xerxes I built the Xerxes Canal and the pontoon bridges that allowed his forces to cross into mainland Greece. Nevertheless, they were harshly punished by the Persian King following his defeat at the Battle of Salamis , which he blamed on Phoenician cowardice and incompetence. In the mid-fourth century BC, King Tennes of Sidon led

5888-616: The Phoenician cities were mainly self-governed. Many of them were fought for or over by the warring factions of the Seleucid royal family. Some Phoenician regions were under Jewish influence, after the Jews revolted and succeeded in defeating the Seleucids in 164 BC. A significant portion of the Phoenician diaspora in North Africa thus converted to Judaism in the late millennium BC. The Seleucid Kingdom

6016-497: The Phoenicians apparently developed in situ from the earlier Ghassulian chalcolithic culture. Ghassulian itself developed from the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex , which in turn developed from a fusion of their ancestral Natufian and Harifian cultures with Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) farming cultures, practicing the domestication of animals during the 8.2 kiloyear event , which led to

6144-504: The Phoenicians developed an industrial base manufacturing a variety of goods for both everyday and luxury use. The Phoenicians developed or mastered techniques such as glass-making , engraved and chased metalwork (including bronze, iron, and gold), ivory carving, and woodwork. The Phoenicians were early pioneers in mass production, and sold a variety of items in bulk. They became the leading source of glassware in antiquity, shipping thousands of flasks, beads, and other glass objects across

6272-420: The Phoenicians had an endonym to denote the land overall, some scholars believe that they would have used " Canaan " and therefore referred to themselves as "Canaanites". Krahmalkov reconstructs the Honeyman inscription (dated to c.  900 BC by William F. Albright ) as containing a reference to the Phoenician homeland, calling it Pūt ( Phoenician : 𐤐𐤕). Obelisks at Karnak contain references to

6400-406: The RTC were of British origin, while the rest of the staff was composed of employees of native origin. In Spain, the company's structure was divided into "departments" that were in charge of different areas: personnel, management, subsidiaries, workshops, railroads, mineral exports, etc. For many years RTC's main facilities were located within the territory of the Riotinto-Nerva mining basin and in

6528-485: The RTC, the fact of divesting its Spanish assets was not frowned upon, given that the Riotinto operations were already beginning to show signs of depletion. Moreover, the British company was the majority shareholder in the company, where it controlled 33% of its capital. With the capital obtained from the sale, the company made investments in Australia, Canada and the United States, where it would exploit uranium and oil deposits. This expansion of its business, in addition to

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6656-460: The Rio Tinto Company Limited was one of the leading companies in Spain in terms of net assets . During this period, the company implemented a reform plan that included purchasing machinery for a greater automation of the operations and the construction of new industrial plants to treat the minerals. Up to the early 20th centur, the exploitation was very profitable, but by the 1920's the situation had turned upside down. During World War I (1914-1918).

6784-399: The Spanish public. An additional issue, even during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship , involved paying taxes to the Treasury. As a result of its close ties with high political spheres, the RTC was engaged in systematic tax fraud against the Spanish Treasury during its first decades of existence. In 1928 a former employee of the company who worked at Casa Colón, Harry Pilkington, denounced to

6912-427: The State in 1783, to be managed by the State again until 1810, when they were closed due to the War of Independence . Between 1815 and 1823, only the sour waters were precariously exploited. The failure in mining exploitation during that period can be explained by the difficulty, and above all the high cost, of transporting the minerals to the sea when there was still no railroad line and transporting them by pack animals

7040-491: The administration and the government. Between 1873 and 1904, these functions were performed by Gabriel Rodríguez and his son Antonio, being succeeded from 1905 by José Valero Hervás. During the latter's period, the influence of the Rio Tinto Company in the capital was at its peak. Thanks to these "Madrid anchorages" the company was able to assume a course of action more in accordance with its own interests and to operate independently from other mining companies. Its influence within

7168-463: The appearance of the city and contrasted with the rise of a new bourgeoisie of both Spaniards and foreigners who were linked to the company. The power of the company became so strong in the city that the civil buildings depended on the interests of the company. Proof of this are the Reina Victoria Neighborhood , as a garden city that housed part of its employees; the construction of the Casa Colón , which ended up becoming headquarters for company offices,

7296-448: The area dated back to the 18th century, with leasing companies such as Robert Wolters. The take-off of industrialization in highly developed countries had led various companies to seek new minerals and deposits for their growth. Likewise, the increase in employment needs caused a rapid growth in the area and even in Huelva. The reason behind the private interest in these mines has its origin in the new central laws of 1849 and 1859, overcoming

7424-420: The area of modern Lebanon. In a 2020 study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics , researchers have shown that there is substantial genetic continuity in Lebanon since the Bronze Age interrupted by three significant admixture events during the Iron Age , Hellenistic , and Ottoman period. In particular, the Phoenicians can be modeled as a mixture of the local Bronze Age population (63–88%) and

7552-462: The area since the beginning of the century, but with the arrival of the English their use increased considerably and it is estimated that around 500 tons per year were released into the air. This had a certain national resonance, and the population in the province was divided between humistas ("pro-smoke") who defended their use as a symbol of progress and antihumistas ("anti-smoke") who condemned them for their extremely high polluting effect (in fact,

7680-419: The area, did not raise concerns about people's health. That is to say, to a certain extent, it "legalized" the use of the calcinations regardless of several deaths of workers in the area caused by them — deaths that the Company's doctors attributed to congenital diseases of the workers and not externally caused ("lack of life" according to their own reports) and, of course, not the result of the mines. Meanwhile,

7808-424: The capital to transfer the army companies to Riotinto. The morning of February 4, a new demonstration took place with the arrival of people from the nearby town of Nerva and neighboring areas, and a delegation even went up to the Town Hall to present their claims. The town's Plaza de la Constitución is full of workers, women and children, and it is estimated that there were more than twelve thousand people from all over

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7936-437: The city of Huelva, although starting in the 1920s, the company began to own mines in North America and Africa. Besides the mining sites, it also controlled industrial plants, auxiliary facilities, warehouses, offices, houses and guest houses, country estates, etc. Within Spanish territory, it owned a railway network with a total length of 360 kilometers, including the main track, branch lines and various secondary tracks. Part of

8064-549: The city they hailed from (e.g., Sidonian for Sidon , Tyrian for Tyre , etc.) A 2008 study led by Pierre Zalloua found that six subclades of Haplogroup J-M172 (J2)—thought to have originated between the Caucasus Mountains , Mesopotamia and the Levant —were of a "Phoenician signature" and present amongst the male populations of coastal Lebanon as well as the wider Levant (the "Phoenician Periphery"), followed by other areas of historic Phoenician settlement, spanning Cyprus through to Morocco. This deliberate sequential sampling

8192-444: The company. The party of the dictatorship came to describe the company as a "colonizer", while Franco himself called the Riotinto mines "an economic Gibraltar of Spain". From some areas, the idea of nationalizing the sites began to be openly promoted. This coincided in time with the outbreak of World War II , which severely affected RTC's traditional markets to the point that by 1941 its turnover had fallen by about 53%. Faced with

8320-433: The core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel . The Phoenicians extended their cultural influence through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula . The Phoenicians directly succeeded the Bronze Age Canaanites , continuing their cultural traditions following the decline of most major cultures in the Late Bronze Age collapse and into

8448-425: The country: The company had its headquarters at number 3 Lombard Street in London , with a representative office at number 8, Calle de Ventura de la Vega in Madrid . Its administrative offices were located in the Huelva municipality of Minas de Riotinto. During the early 1930s, the Riotinto offices were located in the Casa de Dirección . Within the business organization, the managers, technicians and engineers of

8576-404: The creation of a mining museum. In this context, the Rio Tinto corporation offered to cede the building of the former RTC hospital to house the headquarters of the planned museum. In 1988 the transfer of ownership took place, and two years later the restoration and rehabilitation of the complex began. The transfer of various historical materials also took place. The facilities opened their doors to

8704-460: The designs, ornamentation, and embroidery used in Phoenician textiles were well-regarded, the techniques and specific descriptions are unknown. Mining operations in the Phoenician homeland were limited; iron was the only metal of any worth. The first large-scale mining operations probably occurred in Cyprus, principally for copper. Sardinia may have been colonized almost exclusively for its mineral resources; Phoenician settlements were concentrated in

8832-412: The disappeared Hospital Inglés, or the huge Rio Tinto Pier located on the Odiel river. During the early years, the railroad was built in order to provide a cheap and fast outlet for the ore. By 1875, there was already a railway line linking the mine itself with the nearest exit to the sea: the port of Huelva. Thus, most of the wealth obtained from mining — it is estimated, for instance, to be half of

8960-412: The documentary holdings of the former company are located in Spain, stored in the Archivo Histórico Minero of the Río Tinto Foundation . They are grouped in the subgroup "Minas de Riotinto" and the classification table corresponds to the different departments of the company that produced the documentation: Personnel, Accounting, Management, Labor, Railroad, Medical Department, Topography, etc. Apart from

9088-424: The early 1900s, the Rio Tinto Company Limited was already in a strong financial position and began to invest in strategic sectors. In 1905, it founded a subsidiary, the Sociedad Española de Productos Químicos de Huelva , in charge of the production of artificial fertilizers and superphosphates . The company was based in Madrid and had a production plant in Huelva. Around 1907, the RTC signed an energy agreement with

9216-496: The extent of Phoenician trade networks. By the tenth century BC, Tyre rose to become the richest and most powerful Phoenician city-state, particularly during the reign of Hiram I ( c.  969–936 BC). The expertise of Phoenician artisans sent by Hiram I of Tyre in significant construction projects during the reign of Solomon , the King of Israel, is documented in the Bible. During

9344-509: The extracted material by sea. Likewise, the company had a great influence in the region and the province beyond the merely economic. The harsh working conditions of the miners led to numerous conflicts between them and the RTC management. In addition to the Riotinto mines, the company expanded its operations to Africa in the 1920s. After the Spanish Civil War , the political and economic context in Spain became much more adverse, conditioning

9472-423: The following decades, the extraction of minerals in the area experienced a major growth, with the development of various mining and metallurgical activities. Under British exploitation, the Riotinto mines became "a world reference". The RTC was the builder and owner of the railroad line that connected the mines with the port of Huelva , where it built a commercial pier to facilitate the unloading and transport of

9600-459: The fumes from the teleras flooded the entire region and were sometimes visible in the mountains of Seville and even Ayamonte and Portugal ). Thus, since 1877 , the first complaints regarding this matter were made to the Government of Cánovas del Castillo . As a result, a Resolution was published on July 22, 1879, which, even though it imposed small indemnities for the damage caused to the crops in

9728-557: The future of the business. In 1954, the company's assets in Huelva were divested and sold to a local consortium, thus creating the Compañía Española de Minas de Río Tinto . Meanwhile, in 1962, RTC merged with the Australian company Consolidated Zinc to form the Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation , branching out to other parts of the world. The area of the Iberian Pyrite Belt had already been exploited for more than 3000 years — in

9856-532: The government was considerable, reaching a close relationship with the upper spheres of Spanish politics. During the restoration , speculation was rife about the role that Rio Tinto may have had both in the ministerial appointment of Manuel de Burgos y Mazo and in the dismissal of Ángel Urzaiz — the latter, as Minister of Finance, had attempted to introduce some tariff levies on the export of iron pyrite. The company also had its own newspaper in Huelva, La Provincia , that it controlled for some time. By 1917,

9984-464: The ground. Filón Sur in 1874, Filón Norte in 1892, and above all Corta Atalaya , in 1907, then the largest on the European continent. By 1909, RTC had a workforce of 16,973 workers at Riotinto, employing almost a third of the population of the mining basin. The growth of mining activities in Riotinto led the company to build several industrial facilities since the late 19th century, dedicated to

10112-434: The height of Phoenician shipping, mercantile, and cultural activity, particularly between 750 and 650 BC. The Phoenician influence was visible in the "orientalization" of Greek cultural and artistic conventions. Among their most popular goods were fine textiles, typically dyed with Tyrian purple . Homer's Iliad , which was composed during this period, references the quality of Phoenician clothing and metal goods. Carthage

10240-668: The interior (via the Nahr al-Kabir and the Orontes rivers ). The cities provided Egypt with access to Mesopotamian trade and abundant stocks of the region's native cedarwood . There was no equivalent in the Egyptian homeland. By the mid-14th century BC, the Phoenician city-states were considered "favored cities" to the Egyptians. Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and Byblos were regarded as the most important. The Phoenicians had considerable autonomy, and their cities were reasonably well developed and prosperous. Byblos

10368-576: The labor and "environmental" protests of the miners. Thus, on January 31, 1888, a demonstration led by the Cuban trade unionist Maximiliano Tornet arrived at the town's town hall to deliver a series of demands, among them the disappearance of open-air calcination . It was not until December 29 of the same year that the Government decreed that this type of calcination (already banned in Great Britain seven years earlier) should be reduced. Starting on February 2,

10496-463: The lack of profits. Once this initial stage was over, the situation underwent a considerable change. The British company — having obtained the rights to exploit the copper, silver and gold of the mines — initially brought about the resurgence of the region by opening new exploitation areas and developing inland mining. Its production, which left Spain through the Huelva estuary , turned the company into one of

10624-550: The large terracotta jars used for transporting wine. From Egypt, the Phoenicians bought Nubian gold. From elsewhere, they obtained other materials, perhaps the most crucial being silver , mostly from Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula . Tin for making bronze "may have been acquired from Galicia by way of the Atlantic coast of southern Spain; alternatively, it may have come from northern Europe ( Cornwall or Brittany ) via

10752-469: The largest in all of Europe and — in the words of businessman and historian David Avery — made Riotinto (in 1884) "the largest mining center in the world". By the late 1880s, control of the Riotinto company was transferred to the Rothschild family, who bet on increasing the scale of the mining workings. At its peak, Riotinto became a small English colony thanks to the mine, a "Gibraltar sui generis ", as

10880-473: The local writer and poet Juan Cobos Wilkins called it. The luxurious and exclusive Bellavista Neighborhood was built a few meters away from the excavations for the English personnel, which could be accessed after passing through a sentry box with guards; a Victorian style neighborhood that was equipped with tennis courts, golf courses, a own cemetery , a Social Club or even a Presbyterian church . Meanwhile, in

11008-625: The material preserved in Spanish territory, another part of the archives of the historical company is in the custody of the Rio Tinto plc in London. Phoenicia The Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean , primarily modern Lebanon . They developed a maritime civilization which expanded and contracted throughout history, with

11136-506: The mines it already operated in Africa, consolidated the diversification strategy that RTC had been undertaking for several decades. In 1962, the Rio Tinto Company Limited agreed to merge with Consolidated Zinc , giving rise to the Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation . Concurrently, the Australian assets of the two companies were merged to form another company, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia. As the demonstrators, more than 12,000 in number, were huddled in

11264-399: The narrow adjacent streets and square with greater joy and confidence, the cavalry was ordered to withdraw from the place it occupied and immediately afterward a closed, immense discharge — with projectiles sweeping that human mass — sent the crowd in disorderly retreat, leaving many corpses and injured on the ground and ran through the streets shouting cries of terror and violent rage. Who gave

11392-475: The ninth century BC, the Phoenician civilization in the eastern Mediterranean gradually declined due to external influences and conquests. Yet, their presence persisted in the central and western Mediterranean until the destruction of Carthage in the mid-second century BC. The Phoenicians were long considered a lost civilization due to the lack of indigenous written records, and only since the mid-20th century have historians and archaeologists been able to reveal

11520-572: The north. Egypt subsequently lost its coastal holdings from Ugarit in northern Syria to Byblos near central Lebanon. Sometime between 1200 and 1150 BC, the Late Bronze Age collapse severely weakened or destroyed most civilizations in the region, including the Egyptians and Hittites. The Phoenicians were able to survive and navigate the challenges of the crisis, and by 1230 BC city-states such as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, maintained political independence, asserted their maritime interests through overseas colonization, and enjoyed economic prosperity. The period

11648-533: The numerous wars of the Empire. This attempt failed, since the studies of the time considered their exploitation unfeasible and unprofitable. In 1725, the Swede Liebert Wolters Vonsiohielm got the authorities to grant him the exploitation of the sites, under lease, for thirty years. During that time, Wolters would exploit the mines together with his nephew and a Spanish associate. The mines returned to

11776-532: The order to fire? So far it is not known. Was it the Governor? Was it the Military Chief? The unconscious soldiery, the stupid machine that obeys and kills, the soldier who directs the muzzle of the rifle to the town from where he left and to where he will return, enjoyed the sight of gunpowder and blood. With the testimony of hundreds of people who witnessed the event, we can affirm that the demonstrators did not utter

11904-480: The ore shipments. The new situation did not affect exports to the United Kingdom, but it did with France, which between 1936 and 1939 lost virtually all shipments of Riotinto pyrite. The measures imposed by Franco's authorities caused relations between the company and the administration to grow strained. Starting in 1940, the regime adopted a more interventionist line of action, initiating serious harassment towards

12032-476: The original Spanish town, the church or the Plaza de la Constitución — where years before the massacre of the " Año de los tiros " had taken place — ended up being buried under the slag from the excavations. Huelva also underwent an important development under the English influence. The numerous workshops and facilities built by the RTC that employed more than seven hundred workers, such as the railway station , changed

12160-524: The prevailing situation, the company adopted a strategy of minimizing its activities at Riotinto, also imposing a restriction on expenses and dividend distribution among shareholders. From the 1920s, the Rio Tinto Company Limited began a policy of diversification of its investments and activities, acquiring several mines in British colonies in Africa. Around 1928, it was already investing heavily in sites located in Northern Rhodesia . Spain slowly lost

12288-402: The processing of ore. These included  a sulfuric acid factory, a metallurgical plant ( Fundición Bessemer ) and a classification plant ( Lavadoras ). Likewise, a network of auxiliary facilities was set up: warehouses, ore loading bays, workshops, a railway network and branch lines, power plants, dams and reservoirs, etc. Over time, Riotinto became an industrial center of great importance. By

12416-411: The production and trade of the dye, combined with the labor-intensive extraction process, made it very expensive. Tyrian purple subsequently became associated with the upper classes. It soon became a status symbol in several civilizations, most notably among the Romans. Assyrian tribute records from the Phoenicians include "garments of brightly colored stuff" that most likely included Tyrian purple. While

12544-475: The profits generated by its activities in Spain in 1928. The litigation lasted until 1931 and was not favorable to Rio Tinto. The Pilkington affair contributed to increase popular animosity towards the company. In 1929, ore extraction at Riotinto reached its historical maximum. The company made several investments in order to modernize its network of facilities, such as the railroad or the pier in Huelva, or to build new ones. However, in that same year also began

12672-557: The progenitor of classical Greece. Archaeological research suggests that the Minoans gradually imported Near Eastern goods, artistic styles, and customs from other cultures via the Phoenicians. To Egypt the Phoenicians sold logs of cedar for significant sums, and wine beginning in the eighth century. The wine trade with Egypt is vividly documented by shipwrecks discovered in 1997 in the open sea 50 kilometres (30 mi) west of Ascalon , Israel. Pottery kilns at Tyre and Sarepta produced

12800-491: The prominent position it once held within the company since 1873. The proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic , in 1931, was not welcomed by the management of RTC due to fears of an expropriation of the Riotinto mines. Throughout World War II, difficulties faced by the company led to various discussions regarding the sale of the mines to Spanish capitalists, although this possibility did not happen. After 1946, with

12928-421: The public in 1992, as part of a series of initiatives aimed at setting up the so-called Riotinto Mining Park . The museum has sixteen thematic rooms whose historical themes range from prehistory to the end of the 20th century, coinciding with the cessation of activity that the Riotinto mines experienced at that time. Among the material on display are various collections of mining instruments and tools, some from

13056-686: The rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup was identified in the DNA of a 2,500-year-old male skeleton excavated from a Punic tomb in Tunisia. The lineage of this "Young Man of Byrsa" is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb . According to a 2017 study published by the American Journal of Human Genetics , present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite -related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in

13184-561: The region in the 8th millennium BC". Brian R. Doak states that scholars use "Phoenicians" as a short-hand for "Canaanites living in a set of cities along the northern Levantine coast who shared a language and material culture in the Iron I–II period and who also developed an organized system of colonies in the western Mediterranean world". The Phoenician Early Bronze Age is largely unknown. The two most important sites are Byblos and Sidon-Dakerman (near Sidon), although, as of 2021, well over

13312-490: The region, and recent genetic research indicates that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population. The first known account of the Phoenicians relates to the conquests of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC). The Egyptians targeted coastal cities which they wrote belonged to the Fenekhu , 'carpenters', such as Byblos, Arwad, and Ullasa for their crucial geographic and commercial links with

13440-462: The region. When leaving the building the Pavia forces charge for fifteen minutes with shots and bayonets against the demonstrators resulting in a number of fatalities and wounded not officially known — ranging between 14 and 45 in the press and depending on whether it was the conservative or liberal media and today is estimated much wider. Where the bodies of the deceased were buried remains unknown, but it

13568-492: The reigns of the first Babylonian King, Nabopolassar (626–605 BC), and his son Nebuchadnezzar II ( c.  605 – c.  562 BC). In 587 BC Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, which resisted for thirteen years, but ultimately capitulated under "favorable terms". In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great , king and founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire , took Babylon. As Cyrus began consolidating territories across

13696-541: The rise in the international price of copper, the exploitation of the Huelva sites began to yield profits again. In the early 1950s, in a much more stable context, the old idea of selling the mines was taken up again. In June 1954, the negotiations that would lead to the sale of the RTC properties in Huelva to a group of financial institutions began: the Banco Español de Crédito , the Banco Hispano Americano and

13824-513: The rule of the priest Ithobaal (887–856 BC), Tyre expanded its territory as far north as Beirut and into part of Cyprus; this unusual act of aggression was the closest the Phoenicians ever came to forming a unitary territorial state. Once his realm reached its largest territorial extent, Ithobaal declared himself "King of the Sidonians", a title that would be used by his successors and mentioned in both Greek and Jewish accounts. The Late Iron Age saw

13952-572: The southern parts of the island, close to sources of copper and lead. Piles of scoria and copper ingots, which appear to predate Roman occupation, suggest the Phoenicians mined and processed metals on the island. The Iberian Peninsula was the richest source of numerous metals in antiquity, including gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. The significant output of these metals during the Phoenician and Carthaginian occupation strongly implied large scale mining operations. The Carthaginians are documented to have relied on slave labor for mining, though it

14080-527: The town councils tried to prohibit these procedures. But the government, influenced by the Company and conservative newspapers such as La Provincia (which had carried out an almost crusade in favor of mining) systematically repealed all municipal laws against the teleras . The degree of discontent with the situation was such that landowners and day laborers, who saw how their crops and traditional livelihoods were being lost and contaminated without remission, joined

14208-462: The workers' children had to be taken in by other workers' families from Andalusia because they could no longer be fed at home due to the lack of wages and aid. The large English-speaking population settled in the area — mostly workers and managers of the Rio Tinto Company — allowed part of their cultural, social and sporting traditions to be implanted in the mining basin and even in the rest of

14336-443: The world's pyrite — departed quickly across the Atlantic to England , leaving a region in apparent progress but in reality, degraded by a fierce industrialization. Despite all this, the company's profits in the province were undeniable: in little more than eighty years it generated more than 54 million pounds of profit. The landscape impact of the mines was significant, as evidenced by the three immense open-pit mines that opened up into

14464-578: Was 1200 BC to the end of the Persian period (332 BC). It is debated whether Phoenicians were actually distinct from the broader group of Semitic-speaking peoples known as Canaanites . Historian Robert Drews believes the term "Canaanites" corresponds to the ethnic group referred to as "Phoenicians" by the ancient Greeks; archaeologist Jonathan N. Tubb argues that " Ammonites , Moabites , Israelites , and Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet ethnically they were all Canaanites", "the same people who settled in farming villages in

14592-467: Was an attempt to develop a methodology to link the documented historical expansion of a population with a particular geographic genetic pattern or patterns. The researchers suggested that the proposed genetic signature stemmed from "a common source of related lineages rooted in Lebanon ". Another study in 2006 found evidence for the genetic persistence of Phoenicians in the Spanish island of Ibiza . In 2016,

14720-486: Was delivering goods to Tyre. The adaptation to Macedonian rule was probably aided by the Phoenicians' historical ties with the Greeks, with whom they shared some mythological stories and figures; the two peoples were even sometimes considered "relatives". When Alexander's empire collapsed after his death in 323 BC, the Phoenicians came under the control of the largest of its successors, the Seleucids . The Phoenician homeland

14848-573: Was destroyed by Esarhaddon , who enslaved its inhabitants and built a new city on its ruins. By the end of the century, the Assyrians had been weakened by successive revolts, which led to their destruction by the Median Empire . The Babylonians, formerly vassals of the Assyrians, took advantage of the empire's collapse and rebelled, quickly establishing the Neo-Babylonian Empire in its place. Phoenician cities revolted several times throughout

14976-464: Was founded by Phoenicians coming from Tyre, probably initially as a station in the metal trade with the southern Iberian Peninsula . The city's name in Punic , Qart-Ḥadašt ( 𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕 ‎) , means 'New City'. There is a tradition in some ancient sources, such as Philistos of Syracuse , for an "early" foundation date of around 1215 BC—before the fall of Troy in 1180 BC. However, Timaeus ,

15104-401: Was harshly repressed by the army. While the central government and the company hushed up part of the event, it is believed that more than two hundred people were killed that day. The events were known in the province of Huelva as " El año de los tiros" ("The year of the shots"). The teleras (open-air calcination of low copper ore imposed in Spain by Gaspar Remisa decades before) were used in

15232-536: Was no organized Hellenization in Phoenicia, and with one or two minor exceptions, all Phoenician city-states retained their native names, while Greek settlement and administration appear to have been very limited. The Phoenicians maintained cultural and commercial links with their western counterparts. Polybius recounts how the Seleucid King Demetrius I escaped from Rome by boarding a Carthaginian ship that

15360-412: Was not until 1907 when this method of calcination disappeared, being replaced by the construction of small smelters. Less known but also proof of the less poor system of management of the company were the strike of 1913 and, above all, the strike of 1920. With a duration of six months, the workers once again demanded rights that were held by colleagues in other Spanish mining districts. During this strike,

15488-675: Was one of the founding companies of the Rio Tinto Group conglomerate, which was responsible of the exploitation of the Riotinto-Nerva mining basin in Minas de Riotinto between 1873 and 1954. It was founded in 1873 by British capitalists to take over the exploitation of a series of sites in the Riotinto-Nerva mining basin that they had acquired from the Spanish State that same year. During

15616-531: Was repeatedly contested by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt during the forty-year Syrian Wars , coming under Ptolemaic rule in the third century BC. The Seleucids reclaimed the area the following century, holding it until the mid-first 2nd century BC. Under their rule, the Phoenicians were allowed a considerable degree of autonomy and self-governance. During the Seleucid Dynastic Wars (157–63 BC),

15744-523: Was seized by Tigranes the Great of Armenia in 82 BC, ending the Hellenistic influence on the Levant. The people now known as Phoenicians were a group of ancient Semitic-speaking peoples that emerged in the Levant in at least the third millennium BC. Phoenicians did not refer themselves as "Phoenicians" but rather are thought to have broadly referred to themselves as "Kenaʿani", meaning ' Canaanites '. Phoenicians specifically identified themselves with

15872-462: Was started in June 1873. Rio Tinto Company Limited's board of directors met for the first time in London on March 31, 1873, under the chairmanship of Hugh Matheson . One of its first decisions was the construction of a railway line, under the advice of the engineer George Barclay Bruce . The first years of the RTC were difficult: the shareholders had to make large investments and face strong criticism for

16000-521: Was the agreement that the RTC signed with the British Tharsis Sulphur and Copper Company Limited in 1911 whereby both companies shared customers. Practices carried out by the Rio Tinto Company Limited have been equated with those of a pressure group . From its early days, it made use of some deputies in the Cortes to act as intermediaries. However, from 1896, the RTC promoted the candidates of

16128-442: Was the leading city; it was a center for bronze-making and the primary terminus of precious goods such as tin and lapis lazuli from as far east as Afghanistan . Sidon and Tyre also commanded interest among Egyptian officials, beginning a pattern of rivalry that would span the next millennium. The Amarna letters report that from 1350 to 1300 BC, neighboring Amorites and Hittites were capturing Phoenician cities, especially in

16256-468: Was the only option. It was towards the end of the 19th century that the private initiative was interested in renting them again. In 1873, the mines were bought by English bidders — who created a consortium for its exploitation — from the government of the First Republic (practically saved from bankruptcy by this sale) for 94,000,000 pesetas . However, it is worth mentioning that the foreign presence in

16384-489: Was to get the repeal of the Albareda decree , that had prohibited open-air ore calcinations in 1888 because of the pollutants they caused. Leveraging the context that prevailed in the late 19th century, the company managed to have a net of representatives in the province that defended its interests, including names such as José María Parejo Bécquer, José Sánchez Mora or José Valero Hervás . RTC had representation in Madrid before

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