Mining in the Mountains

Across Nepal, the history of widespread mining from the 18th to 20th centuries remains alive in the plethora of places across the country with the suffix –khani, mine, in their names.

Many different materials – saltpeter, sulphur, copper, iron, graphite, lead – were mined at different places across the territory. Materials were mined at notable scale through small mines reliant on human power. Efforts at intensifying mines through extension and intensification operations were ongoing. These realities of diverse operations, scale, and intensification are part of a larger web of stories about systems of extraction, transportation, and production that thread together communities, knowledge cultures, markets and everyday life. Gathering and conceptualizing information on the landscape of mining sites and materials  in the mountains in the 18th to 20th centuries, this project presents that information to a popular and scholarly public through various mediums and media.