It produced as much as two-thirds of Europe's copper needs[1] and helped fund many of Sweden's wars in the 17th century.

Archaeological and geological studies indicate, with considerable uncertainty, that mining operations started sometime around the year 1000.

In the beginning, operations were of a small scale, with local farmers gathering ore, smelting it, and using the metal for household needs.

[3] Around the time of Magnus III, king of Sweden from 1275 to 1290, a more professional operation began to take place.

The merchants transported and sold the copper in Europe but also influenced the operations and developed the methods and technology used for mining.

The then king, Magnus IV, visited the area personally and drafted a charter for mining operations, ensuring the financial interest of the sovereign.

When the rock cooled down, it would become brittle and crack, allowing manual tools such as wedges and sledge hammers to be brought to bear.

Production had intensified in the preceding decades, and by 1687 the rock was crisscrossed by numerous shafts and cave-ins were not unusual.

Great effort went into producing maps of the mine for navigation, but there was no overall organization nor any estimation of the strength of the mountain.

On Midsummer's Eve of that year, the dividing wall between the main pits and the foundations gave way, and a significant portion of the mine collapsed.

[8] Fires were lit at the end of the day to heat the ore and allowed to burn through the night.

Hand barrows were used to transport the broken ore, in relays of about 20 m (70 ft) with multiple teams working long distances.

The work was hard and the mines very hot from the constant fires, and the miners were good customers of local drinking establishments.

In 1690, Erik Odhelius, a prominent metallurgist, was dispatched by the King to survey the European metal market.

[18] The chemical element tantalum was first discovered in 1802 by Anders Ekeberg in samples coming from Falun and England.

[19]: 345–352 Selenium was initially discovered and isolated in 1817 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Johann Gottlieb Gahn as an impurity of pyrite coming from the Falun mine that had been used in sulfuric acid production.