The first name that comes to mind when Amasya's underground resources are mentioned is Gümüşhacıköy, with its mining history of several thousand years. This district in the west of the province takes its name from its silver mine and has hosted one of the oldest continuously worked silver-bearing lead deposits in Anatolia. Around Merzifon and Suluova, lignite has been extracted since the middle of the twentieth century; the Çeltek pits supplied the region's energy needs and were also the scene of one of the province's heaviest tragedies. Add the hot springs of Terziköy, Gözlek and Hamamözü, and the industrial mineral and metal occurrences stretching from Taşova to the central district, and the result is an underground inventory far broader than most people assume.

The Early History of the Gümüşhacıköy Mines

Gümüşhacıköy came into being through the merger of two neighbouring settlements, Gümüş and Hacıköy, and the silver in its name points to the ore veins known on the slopes and summits of Mount İnegöl. In the localities of Karlık Tepe, Kale Tepe and Çadır Düzü around the town of Gümüş, intensive mining is known to have been carried out from the Early Bronze Age, that is, from the third millennium BCE; the old gallery entrances were widened again and again over time, and thick slag heaps accumulated in the surroundings. These slags are an important archive for the early metallurgy of Anatolia. Their analysis has shown that the smiths of that age added quartz to the ore to retain heat in their furnaces and reached fairly high temperatures. In addition, a group of finds in arsenical copper, dated to Early Bronze Age II and III and totalling one hundred and fifteen pieces, is known in a private museum collection under the name Gümüşhacıköy. In antiquity, copper is said to have been obtained from Merzifon and arsenic from the vicinity of Gümüşhacıköy.

It has been suggested that the silver-bearing lead sources at Gümüş were in use from the beginning of the Iron Age and may even have been worked in the Hittite period; this view remains at the level of research and rests on no firm document. Comments on the contribution of the same mines to the Urartian economy are likewise conjecture. In the Roman period the area served as a town with a broad agricultural hinterland under the name Diakopene. By the Middle Ages the fame of the mine had clearly travelled beyond Anatolia: Arab geographers referred to the settlement as Kumus, Kumis or Fodda, and Ibn Battuta recorded it in 1332 as Medinetü Gümüş. The variety of names in the settlement's history shows that the town was known in distant lands as a mining centre.

The Gümüş Mint in the Seljuk and Beylik Periods

After taking Amasya in 1075, Danishmendid Melik Ahmed Gazi also seized Gümüş, and in the following century the region was incorporated into the Anatolian Seljuk state. The Seljuks wished to process the rich silver on the spot and founded a mint beside the mine for this purpose. Local records state that the mint building was opened in 1248; it was converted into a mosque in 1866 and is known today as the Darphane (Mint) Mosque. Sources report that Kılıçarslan IV had silver coins struck at the Gümüş Mint in 1263. Two mint names, Gümüş and Gümüşpazar, appear on Seljuk coinage. The handwriting and even the spelling errors on coins dated 657 AH struck at Amasya, and on coins dated 657 and 660 AH struck at Gümüş, are identical, which strengthens the interpretation that these mints correspond to Gümüşhacıköy. This identification remains an inference all the same and is not regarded as beyond dispute in the numismatic literature.

In the first years of Ottoman administration, a mine superintendent (emin) appointed from the centre was placed at the head of the mine. It is reported that Halil Bey of the Kutlubeyzade family from Amasya was appointed superintendent of the Gümüş mine in 1403-1404, in the reign of Sultan Mehmed Çelebi. The Haliliye Madrasa built by Halil Pasha, later a beylerbey, and the mosque that Yörgüç Pasha had erected beside it show that the town was furnished with institutions such as madrasas and mosques in this period. As for Hacıköy, according to the Amasya historian Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsamettin, its name derives from Hacı Ahmed Çelebi, who from 1490-1491 resided at Hacıköy as Overseer of the Gümüş Mine; thanks to this official, who developed the mine and treated the people well, the settlement was called the village of Hacı Nazır and in time Hacıköy. This information belongs to local historical writing and would need separate confirmation from archival documents.

Mine Trusteeships in the Ottoman Order

The Ottoman state kept nearly all gold and silver mines, and most copper and lead mines, in its own ownership and organised them as fiscal units called mukataas. Silver held special importance for the treasury because it was the raw material of the akçe; a mint usually stood beside every large pit, and silver-bearing lead was smelted there and separated from its lead and, where present, its gold. In this system Gümüşhacıköy figured as one of the principal silver and lead fields worked in Anatolia, and the Bakırçayı copper field attached to it belonged to the same area. Gümüş, placed under the administration of the Imperial Mint in the sixteenth century as part of the province of Sivas, is recorded with sixteen quarters in the survey of 1520 and nineteen in that of 1576, and its population rose from 3,589 to 6,602.

After the second half of the sixteenth century, the large quantities of silver flowing from the Americas into the Mediterranean world made the production costs of Ottoman mines unsustainable, and many silver pits and mints were closed for long periods. Gümüşhacıköy took its share of this contraction. The mine regained importance in the middle of the seventeenth century, when it was granted to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha as a personal estate (has arpalık). The Pasha was obliged to reside there, and in 1660-1661 he had a mosque, a bath and a bedesten built and endowed as a waqf; the caravanserai and bedesten are also recorded as dating from 1669. Abdülbaki Bey of the Köprülü family took office as mine superintendent and guarantor in 1756-1757, renovated the mosque and added new buildings, the bath above all. In the meantime Gümüş had grown into a district centre of eight quarters.

A decree of 1775 provided for the central supervision of the large pits under the name Imperial Mines Trusteeship (Maden-i Hümayun Emaneti) and for measures to raise output. Under the trusteeship system the superintendent managed the operation for a fixed fee, and expenses were met from working capital delivered to him. The drawback was that the superintendent bore no risk of loss and so had little incentive to strive for profit. Gümüşhacıköy, together with Keban-Ergani and Bulgardağı, was among the large pits worked in this way; superintendents were appointed on the recommendation of the Director of the Mint, upon the grand vizier's memorial and the sultan's imperial rescript, and local officials had no say in the matter.

Revival at the Start of the Nineteenth Century

The reopening of the mine appears in the archives as a turning point. In 1797 an inspection by two master miners in the district of Merzifon established that the area was rich in ore and that working it required little expense; Çaparzade Süleyman Bey undertook the operation from that date. A letter written in 1800 by Mahmud Tayyar Bey, collector of Canik, speaks of a "new mine" that had reappeared in the district of Gümüş. Samples were sent to Istanbul, master miners were brought from Gümüşhane, and new furnaces were built. The documents record that two teams, each of ten miners, under the master foremen Kirkor and Yakut, were assigned to set up the furnaces and open new galleries. At that time the master miners of Gümüşhane were also employed at Ergani and Keban, and the idea arose of redirecting to Gümüşhacıköy the foremen of some thirty or forty idle pits around Gümüşhane and Espiye.

For the expenses of the pit, the Gümüş and Hacıköy mukataas were set aside, together with the revenues of the Köprülü foundation and the obligations of the surrounding villages. The inhabitants of Gümüş, Hacıköy and the sub-district of Kabakoz, Korköy in Merzifon and the villages of the district of Zeytun were attached to the mine service; these villages were exempted from the ordinary customary taxes and charged with supplying wood, logs, charcoal and tiles, hauling loads and providing provisions. The fortresses of the districts and sub-districts were also attached to the mine superintendency, and the correspondence describes this situation as administration "on the basis of serbestiyet" (a privileged autonomy). The technical staff of the mine comprised master craftsmen, labourers, auxiliaries and guards; the prustads and kalcıs who ran the furnaces, the separators, the tunnellers, the diggers and the carriers of wood all belonged to it. The labour force was called the "mining community" (madenciyan taifesi); in return for their exemption from the peasant's dues, they were forbidden to leave the mine.

Mine superintendents were mostly appointed for one year from the beginning of March. Silahdar Ömer served in 1801, Mustafa in 1802, Velibeyzade Seyyid Ahmed, one of the sultan's elite guard, in 1804, Çaparzade Süleyman in 1806, Osman, Ömer and Seyyid İsmail between 1807 and 1809, Fazlızade Seyyid Mehmed Said in 1811, Osman Ağa again between 1815 and 1819, and Ali Ağa in 1821. Süleyman Bey's term was a period of rising output: the quantity of silver-bearing gold and lead delivered to the Mint was 15,965 dirhams in 1806 and reached 41,260 dirhams in 1809. Süleyman Bey also held the post of deputy governor (mütesellim) of the sanjak of Amasya; combining the mine superintendent and the sanjak administrator in one person was one of the ways in which the state controlled the region from the centre. In 1810, after he ran into trouble with the miners and the local population, and also because of the balance among the notables of central Anatolia, the operation was taken from him and given to İsmail Ağa, who came from the community of the Ergani mine. İsmail Ağa was required to open new galleries, produce large quantities of silver and lead, and protect the miners from oppression.

The figures for later years show that output was unstable. In 1815 the silver of Osman Ağa, weighed in public at the Mint, was recorded as 18,245 dirhams from twenty-eight pieces of pure silver and 4,245 dirhams from nine pieces of mixed silver. A record of 13 August 1819 states that 37,145 dirhams of silver produced in fifteen furnaces were sent to the Mint, and that the districts of Merzifon and Merzifonabad were attached to the mine administration once the richness of the ore was understood. These figures are modest beside Keban's silver output of 855,460 dirhams in 1817-1818, but they exceed Ergani's 12,164 dirhams in 1783 and the 5,095 dirhams of the Tevfik mine in 1800-1802. Silver and lead were carried overland, first through Amasya, to the port of Samsun, weighed and counted there, and then shipped to Istanbul by sea. A record of 1866 reports that Gümüşhacıköy lead was carried to Samsun in the ox-carts of the people of the district of Kavak.

Late Operations and Closure

In the Tanzimat period, mining was modernised with the help of foreign engineers, and Gümüşhacıköy was not left out of this effort. The appointment of Edhem Bey as director of the Imperial Mines in 1842 is an example of technical innovation. The Italian mining engineer Eduard Coulant worked for a year at Gümüşhacıköy to raise output and improve the furnaces, and he was rewarded for this service with the Mecidiye order in 1884. The administrative identity of the town was also shaped by the mine at this time: Gümüş moved to Hacıköy in 1882-1883 as the district of Maden-i Sim and from 1883 began to be called Gümüşhacıköy. A bath dated 1820 and the monastery built between 1840 and 1860 by Greeks who came to work at the mine are among the architectural traces of this period of operation.

The Gümüşhacıköy mine field was worked continuously in the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods; it was shut down towards the end of the First World War because no workable ore remained in the upper zones. In the republican period the area was studied geologically again, and the engineer V. Kovenko prepared a geological note on the site in 1937. After 1988 an engineering firm, in partnership with a state economic enterprise, carried out silver-lead exploration at the historic site for five years. According to the inventory of the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration, the lead content of the Gümüşköyü deposit lies between 20 and 40 percent and its zinc content between 1 and 4 percent, with silver values of 500 to 3,500 grams per ton recorded. The deposit is not worked today; the site holds many old galleries opened for mining and a slag heap of about 200,000 tons containing 3 to 4 percent lead and 20 to 30 grams of silver per ton.

Copper and Neighbouring Deposits

Amasya is a city known for its copperwork, but the raw material of this tradition came largely from outside the province. Archival studies state that the Küre copper mine in Kastamonu, which appears in Ottoman records as Küre-i Nühas, that is, the copper pit, supplied the coppersmiths of cities such as Sivas, Tokat and Amasya. The foundry at Tokat where copper was smelted was likewise among the operations the Ottomans ran directly. In other words, the development of copper as a craft in Amasya owes more to these trade routes than to the province's own mine.

Copper occurrences also exist within the province. In the Kargındere field near İmirler village in Gümüşhacıköy, about 1,750 tons of ore potential with 4.94 percent copper has been found, and in the Tağıltaşıtepe field a copper occurrence varying between 0.02 and 2.45 percent has been identified. From a copper-molybdenum-pyrite deposit with 0.2 percent copper equivalent in the Bakırçay Stream area of Merzifon, ore was extracted in past years, but the deposit is not worked today. Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsamettin writes that gold, silver, copper, gas, coal and salt are found in the sanjak of Amasya; some of this list remains at the level of occurrences today.

The Çeltek Lignite Basin

The largest known lignite basin in Amasya is the Çeltek field, which lies between the districts of Merzifon and Suluova. Coal formations are seen in the districts of Suluova, Merzifon, Taşova and the centre within the provincial borders, and production takes place in some of them. In the Merzifon-Yeniçeltek field a total of 19,791,000 tons of reserves has been established, of which 2,736,000 tons are proven and 17,055,000 tons probable. The lower calorific value is around 3,500 kcal/kg, so it is a low-calorie but locally useful coal; the average ash content is 40.5 percent and the moisture content about 10 percent. Its uses are domestic heating and industry. In the Armutlu field in Suluova, 769,000 tons, and in the Oğulbağı field 3,483,000 tons of probable reserves are recorded, with calorific values varying between 3,587 and 5,574. In the bituminous shales of the Çeltek field, 90 million tons of probable reserves have been calculated at an average of 3.10 percent bitumen and a lower calorific value of 541 kcal/kg, equivalent to 7,982,000 tons of hard coal; this shale is not yet worked.

Mining at Çeltek goes back to the first half of the twentieth century. The Old Çeltek pit was opened in the 1930s, while the Yeni Çeltek Coal Enterprise was founded in 1955 to meet the energy needs of the Suluova Sugar Factory. The factory's own coal-fired power plant was also fed with coal from this pit, so that industry and mining developed side by side on a plain given over mainly to agriculture. For many years the shares of the enterprise were divided among the Turkish Coal Enterprises Institution, the sugar company and the municipalities of Amasya, Merzifon and Suluova; in 2013 the operation was transferred to a private company under a long-term lease. Former workers recount that a union struggle took place at the pit before 1980 and that it ended under heavy pressure after 1980. Besides Old and New Çeltek, other small coal enterprises still operate around Merzifon and Suluova today.

The firedamp explosion and subsequent fire at the Yeni Çeltek pit on the evening of 7 February 1990 killed 68 workers and entered the record as one of the heaviest accidents in the history of Turkish mining. The workers on shift had descended about 316 metres underground; the blast came at around 19.30. Some of those near the exit managed to throw themselves out, but because the gas leak and fire continued for those left inside, concrete was poured through the ventilation shafts and the mouth of the gallery. The number of bodies recovered is reported differently by different sources; local news archives say 63 bodies were brought out and the remaining five were never recovered, while newspaper reports of the time initially wrote that only three had been recovered. Most of the dead came from the village of Kayadüzü in Merzifon, where a memorial on the hilltop hosts an annual commemoration. Which district the site belongs to also varies in the records: because the Çeltek basin lies on the border between two districts, some records give Merzifon and others Suluova.

Industrial Minerals and Other Occurrences

Among the province's non-metallic deposits, the largest reserve is that of the ceramic and refractory clays of Gümüşhacıköy. In the Keçiköy field there are 7,806,400 tons of proven and 15,612,800 tons of probable reserves with 18-23 percent alumina; in the Çat quarter, 29,250,000 tons of probable and possible reserves with 17-30 percent alumina; and at Akpınar, 144,000 tons of refractory clay; the total of the three fields reaches 52,813,200 tons. In the Sepetlioba field in Taşova, 200,000 tons of possible bentonite reserves of bleaching-earth quality have been identified. Manganese is recorded in the Bicolar field of Gümüşhacıköy as 40,000 tons at 25.70 percent, and in the Yağcıabdal field of the central district as ore potential of 80-100 thousand tons at 38.62 percent. At the Avşar occurrence in the central district, antimony is seen in vein form.

Asbestos is a substance that deserves separate mention among the province's underground resources. In the Karaibrahimköy field of the central district, 329,000 tons of proven reserves at a fibre content of 2.4-4.1 percent have been established, 741,700 tons of probable reserves in the Tuzla Sırtı field, and a total of 1,487,000 tons of probable reserves at 1-2.8 percent fibre in the Abbastekne and Arapkuzu fields around Şeyhzadi. Because of its carcinogenic effect, asbestos is a mineral whose use is restricted today, and for that reason these fields matter more as geological inventory information than as an economic resource. Building stone, limestone and marble are widespread across the province; the coloured limestones of the Amasya Formation are said to attract interest as decorative stone in places, but there is no orderly record of how far this has turned into commercial operation.

Geothermal Waters and Thermal Springs

Amasya's hot waters are associated with active fault systems such as the Kırıkkale-Erbaa Fault, which passes south of the province, and the North Anatolian Fault, which passes near Taşova in the north. In the geothermal fields of Terziköy, Gözlek and Hamamözü, natural outflows have temperatures of 37 to 40 degrees and flow rates of 2 to 10 litres per second. Wells drilled in these fields have yielded fluids with temperatures between 35.5 and 42.5 degrees and flow rates between 11.5 and 125 litres per second. The hot water is used in spa facilities for bathing and drinking, and also for heating greenhouses.

The Terziköy Spa lies within the boundaries of Çivi village in the central district. The geology and hydrogeology survey completed by the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration in 1999 covers an area of about 144 square kilometres. According to the survey, the oldest unit in the area is the Palaeozoic metamorphic schist; Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous limestones and younger units overlie it, and the exit of the hot waters to the surface is controlled by fault systems trending northeast-southwest. The hot water requirement of the facility is met from the spa spring, at 37 degrees and about 10 litres per second, and from the Terziköy-1 borehole, at 36.5 degrees and 4 litres per second; the area also has other springs with a total flow of 6 litres per second and temperatures between 31 and 32 degrees. By the classification of the International Association of Hydrogeologists the waters belong to the group of hot waters poor in minerals; they have a bicarbonate, calcium and sodium composition, total mineralisation of about 0.7 grams per litre and a pH of 6.67. To increase the flow, the survey proposed a fault-controlled drilling site of about 450 metres.

No firm record exists of Terziköy's past. In the foundation excavation of the hotel built next to it, Roman water pipes and copper coins dated to the fourth century CE were found, and these finds have been interpreted as pointing to a large Roman settlement in the surroundings. It is also related that at the site of the main spring there stood a wooden structure of Ottoman origin containing a pool four metres by four and simple changing rooms. Some compilations place the spa within the boundaries of Göynücek, whereas official records and the surveys of the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration give Çivi village in the central district. The same compilations list the strongly sulphurous Gözlek Spa, in a marshy area on the bank of the Çekerek south of the provincial centre on the Göynücek road, and another bath spring between the villages of Misak and Çivi. Çırçır Spring is a drinking spring in the locality of Karakaya.

The spa at Hamamözü is also known as the Arkut Bey Spa or the Arkıtbey Bath, after the Seljuk beg Arkut Bey. At an altitude of 640 metres, the spa is roughly 90 kilometres from the provincial centre. Although its history is not precisely known, it is said to have been used since antiquity, and excavations are reported to have found evidence of operation from the middle of the first century CE. The water, which emerged at the surface as a seep, was turned into a bath with two domes, separate for women and men, in the time of Arkut Bey, and was run again in the Ottoman period. After the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878, migrants from the Caucasus settled there and took over the management of the spa. The present settlement of Hamamözü itself was founded in 1887 when Circassian refugees bought the farm of two notables from the nearby village of Gümüş. The water from the three springs is 38 degrees, of sodium bicarbonate type, with a pH of 7.4 and a radioactivity of 6 eman; it is used for both drinking and bathing. Modern thermal facilities entered service only in the 2000s. It should be remembered that the waters of Terziköy and Hamamözü are of similar chemical makeup, that they are used as complementary treatment for rheumatic diseases and digestive complaints, and that these benefits are mostly transmitted as traditional and compiled knowledge.

The Present Importance of the Underground Resources

In Amasya's economy today, mining trails behind agriculture and the food industry. The silver-lead galleries of Gümüşhacıköy are closed and the copper fields remain unworked occurrences, while the coal pits of the Çeltek basin are the province's main continuously operating mines. Beyond their natural outflows, geothermal waters hold a potential that can be developed with boreholes, and the inventory studies of the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration also establish this potential at first hand. The inventory studies list the silver and lead in the old slag heaps, together with the still unworked bituminous shale and manganese occurrences, among the usable potential of the province. Any expansion of mining in these areas has to be considered together with the protection of the plain's farmland and water sources; around Suluova and Merzifon, lignite pits and sugar beet fields share the same geography.

Chronology

3rd millennium BCE: Traces of mining begin at Karlık Tepe, Kale Tepe and Çadır Düzü in the Gümüş area.

1075: Danishmendid Melik Ahmed Gazi takes Amasya and then Gümüş.

1248: According to local records, the Seljuk mint opens at Gümüş.

1263: Kılıçarslan IV has coins struck at the Gümüş Mint.

1332: Ibn Battuta records the town as Medinetü Gümüş.

1403-1404: Halil Bey of the Kutlubeyzade family is appointed superintendent of the Gümüş mine.

1520 and 1576: The number of quarters in Gümüş rises from 16 to 19 and its population from 3,589 to 6,602.

1660-1661: Köprülü Mehmed Pasha endows a mosque, bath and bedesten at Hacıköy.

1775: The decree regulating the Imperial Mines Trusteeship is issued.

1797-1800: The mine is explored and reopened; master miners are brought from Gümüşhane.

1806-1809: Output of silver-bearing gold and lead rises from 15,965 dirhams to 41,260 dirhams.

1819: 37,145 dirhams of silver are obtained from the furnaces; the districts of Merzifon are attached to the mine administration.

1883: The settlement begins to be called Gümüşhacıköy.

1930s: The Old Çeltek pit is opened.

1955: The Yeni Çeltek Coal Enterprise is founded.

1990: On 7 February, a firedamp explosion at Yeni Çeltek kills 68 workers.

1999: The geology and hydrogeology survey of the Terziköy Spa by the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration is published.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsamettin. Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1 (1329-1330 AH / 1911-1912).

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources