Since the Middle Ages, men dug the Vosges mountains in search of precious metals. Silver was discovered in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines around the 10th century but exploited through rudimentary tools on a small scale. The mining activities took off during the 16th century after the unearthing of the Saint-Jean vein in 1549 and the importation of innovative techniques from Saxony. The miners started to dig the gneiss rock deeply to collect its quartz, lead, and silver. The 180 cubic meters of the immense artificial cavity known as Colonne Saint-Jean (Saint-John's Column) today constitute the site of the via ferrata created in Tellure Park in 2009.