Starting point: Ingurtosu Hamlet.

The history of Arbus is indissolubly linked to its mines history. The itinerary suggests the visit of the two main mining complex of the territory, the villages of Ingurtosu and Montevecchio, both included in the Geological Mining Park of Sardinia. These places, that were the propulsive centres of the local economy, are now abandoned but they still testimony people’s history of work and life.

Ingurtosu is located at the beginning of the valley of “Is animas” and it was the Office District of the mine of Gennamari where silver, zinc and lead were extracted. The first stopes started in the second half of the 1800 but the extraction activity reached its maximum expansion at the beginning of the XX century when the property of the mines was given to the English Society Pertusola Limited. The shafts worked until  the 70s.

In Ingurtosu it is possible to visit the Direction Palace, also Called “the Castle”, built in 1870 in medieval style and located in a good watching point compared to the office workers and miners’ houses and Saint Barbara’s church. The church was partially financed by Lord Brassey, the owner of the mines, to create better life conditions for miners and their families. Outside the church, the Way of the Cross is very impressive and it was realized in 1936 thanks to the wish of inhabitants. It starts from the church and goes along a path within the Mediterranean scrub until a rock where the three Calvary crosses stand.

Not far from the church it is possible to visit the shaft Pozzo Gal ( located in the Harold stope)that was linked by a railway with the Lavery Brassey, a complex of laveries (mechanic and magnetic) and of mineral floatation.