Medni Rid Rosen Ore Field

Southeastern Bulgaria · Strandzha–Sakar · Black Sea coast

Medni Rid Ridge &
Rosen Ore Field

Six millennia of copper — from Chalcolithic pits to industrial pits — read through the geology, minerals, and mines of a small coastal ridge.

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The collection

An interactive knowledge base built from primary geological and archaeometallurgical sources.

Fig. 1 · Geological map

Geology

A Late Cretaceous volcano, a syenite pluton, and the fracture system that carries the ore.

sK₂ syenitetkK₂ tuff
Malachite · Cu₂(CO₃)(OH)₂

Minerals

Copper carbonates, sulphides, and iron oxides across five deposits — malachite is the signature.

carbonatessulphides
Chalcolithic mine pit

Mining & Archaeometallurgy

Pits, galleries, slag heaps, and smelting sites — 6,000 years of extraction traced site by site.

15 sites catalogued
Ridge habitats

Ecology

The ridge today: habitats shaped by thin soils, old mining ground, and the Black Sea climate.

Medni Rid ridge

One ridge, six mining eras

  1. Chalcolithic
    5th millennium BC
  2. Bronze Age
    3rd–2nd millennium BC
  3. Thracian
    1st millennium BC
  4. Greek / Roman
    6th c. BC – 4th c. AD
  5. Medieval / Ottoman
    12th–19th c.
  6. Modern
    20th c. – today