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The principal mines were in the southern mountain range, near Tamasus, but there were others also at Amathus, Soli, and Curium. Some of the old workings have been noticed by modern travellers, particularly near Soli and Tamasus, but they have neither been described anciently nor examined scientifically in modern times.
The copper mines near Tamasus were enormously productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over all other supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium for the metal generally whence the names by which it is even now known in most of the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was considered inferior to no known island.
As Famagosta it was famous in the wars between the Venetians and the Turks. Tamasus, or Tamassus, was an inland city, and the chief seat of the mining operations which the Phoenicians carried on in the island in search of copper. The river Pediaeus flowed at its feet. Like Ammochosta, it appears among the Cyprian towns which in the seventh century B.C. were tributary to the Assyrians.
We gather also from Strabo that Tamasus had silver mines. That the Phoenicians conducted mining operations in Thasos we know from Herodotus, and from other writers of repute we learn that they extended these operations to the mainland opposite.
Still, there was no help for it and no other ship by which he could sail, so here he abode for more than three months, spending his time in Curium, Amathos and Salamis, trading among the rich natives of Cyprus, out of whom he made a large profit, and adding wine, and copper from Tamasus to his other merchandise, as much as there was room for on the ship.
"To our lord Melkarth, the lord of Tyre. In hearing their voice, may he bless them." "On the sixth day of the month Bul, in the twenty-first year of King Pumi-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, and Tamasus, son of King Melek-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, this altar and these two lions were given by Bodo, priest of Reseph-hets, son of Yakun-shalam, son of Esmunadon, to his lord Reseph-hets.
The ore from which the metal was extracted is called chalcitis by Pliny, and may have been the "chalcocite" of our present metallurgical science, which is a sulphide containing very nearly eighty per cent. of copper. The brief account which Strabo gives of the mines of Tamasus shows that the ore was smelted in furnaces which were heated by wood fires.
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