No one knows exactly when mining began at Falun. Archaeological and geological studies suggest operations started around the year 1000, though the uncertainty is considerable. Objects from the 10th century containing Falun copper have been found. In the beginning, local farmers gathered ore, smelted it themselves, and used the metal for household needs - a cottage industry scratched from the earth. Around the reign of Magnus III (1275-1290), merchants from Lübeck arrived, bringing German expertise and European capital. The oldest written record dates to 1288, documenting the Bishop of Västerås acquiring a 12.5% stake in the mine in exchange for an estate. A church buying shares in a mine: from the start, Falun attracted serious investors.

The extraction method remained essentially unchanged for seven centuries. Workers lit fires against the rock face at the end of each day and let them burn through the night. By morning, the heated rock had become brittle enough to crack under wedges and sledgehammers. Miners advanced about a meter per month. The ore then faced repeated cycles of roasting and smelting: first to reduce sulfur content in open hearths, then to extract copper-rich material, with the process repeating until crude copper emerged. The miners who worked the fires and broke the rock earned the highest wages but paid with their health. Newcomers proved themselves hauling broken ore by hand barrow in relays. The work was brutal, the heat constant, and drunkenness so common among miners that it was considered normal behavior for the profession.

In 1347, King Magnus IV visited Falun and drafted a charter that created something remarkable: free miners who owned shares proportional to their ownership of copper smelters. This organizational structure anticipated modern joint-stock companies by centuries. The direct corporate descendant of this medieval arrangement is Stora Enso, often called the oldest continuously operating company in the world. For Sweden, the arrangement worked spectacularly. By the 17th century, the mine produced as much as two-thirds of Europe's copper supply. Japan was the only comparable producer, but European imports from Japan were insignificant. As metallurgist Erik Odhelius reported in 1690, 'For the production of copper Sweden has always been like a mother.'

The mine's scientific legacy extends beyond copper. In 1802, Anders Ekeberg discovered the element tantalum in samples from Falun. In 1817, Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Johann Gottlieb Gahn isolated selenium from Falun pyrite used in sulfuric acid production. Berzelius even mistakenly 'discovered' thorium in Falun ore in 1815 - it turned out to be yttrium phosphate, but when he found actual thorium in 1829, he recycled the name. Nils Gabriel Sefström, who discovered vanadium, and Johan Gottlieb Gahn, who discovered manganese, both lived in Falun. The mine that fed empires also expanded the periodic table.

Production peaked at barely 3,000 tonnes of copper per year, falling below 2,000 tonnes by 1665 and to barely 1,000 tonnes between 1710 and 1720. Modern perspective reveals the scale: present worldwide copper production exceeds 18 million tonnes annually, and Chile's Chuquicamata mine alone produces over 500,000 tonnes per year. As copper declined, Falun diversified into iron, timber, and the iconic Falu red paint made from mine waste that still colors traditional Swedish buildings. Gold was discovered in 1881, producing a brief rush that eventually yielded five tonnes. On December 8, 1992, the last shot was fired. Today the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the museum draws 100,000 visitors annually, and the miners' cottages and estates built by 'free miners' over centuries stand preserved around the great pit that Linnaeus called hellish.