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Villaggio Minerario Asproni

A former mining village that now operates as an open-air museum.

Iglesias, Italy

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Piero Pusceddu
Near the village, there is this curious building, built in 1870. Inside it there was a steam plant, to lift the lead and silver minerals from the galleries below the ground. The miners nicknamed it “Sa Macchina Beccia” (The old machine, in Sardinian language). The plant stopped working in 1940.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
A fireplace inside a miner’s home. All miners’ homes had a fireplace. For heating, and cooking, sometimes…   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
The St. George’s Church.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Asproni family home.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Building of the mine management.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
The grocery store.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Villaggio Minerario Asproni   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
The public fountain. The most important place of the village: here people met (expecially women and children during the week; men only on Sundays…).   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
The houses of the miners. Note the pole for electricity, not so a common thing in this kind of homes…   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Villaggio Minerario Asproni   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
A bathroom, outside miners’ homes.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
The school, for miners’ children.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Near the village, a wood furnace for the calcination of zinc carbonate. The carbonate was transformed in oxyd, then transported to the main plant at Seddas Moddizzis for further refinings.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
Seddas Moddizzis mine plant. On the right of the photo, the oldest part of the plant (beginning of 20th Century); on the left the concrete part built in the ’50s. In the mine, lead, zinc and silver minerals were extracted.   ipponax / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Asproni Mine Village was a place where mine workers of Serra Moddizzis lived from the end of the 18th to the half of the 19th-century.

The mine was founded by Giorgio Asproni (1841-1936), and was a fully operational village, with all the services of a small town. The town included an elementary school for miners' children, a post office, church, grocery store, a little hospital, and more.

Asproni and his family lived here despite the relatively short distance from the nearest important town, Iglesias. The last people lived in the town around the 1960s. The once-booming town was abandoned not long after. 

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 People can visit the village for free, or with a local guide for 5 € each.

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Published

February 23, 2022

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