We know from our discoveries of jewellery and funeral urns that zinc was used, mainly in the form of copper and zinc alloys, in ancient times in Greece and Egypt. Much later, during the Middle Ages, it was produced in the form of metal in China and India.
In 1806, a cleric discovered an innovative process for extracting zinc from calamine. This process was granted a patent by the Emperor Napoleon 1st in 1809. On the same date an imperial decree granted him the mining rights to the deposits at a site called Vieille Montagne in Belgium.
Then, in 1837, the Société des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne was founded. For over 150 years the Société des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne was to establish zinc's pedigree and develop its application in the roofing industry. Zinc rapidly played a dominant role, especially in the building of modern Paris under the influence of Baron Haussman. In 1853, the Compagnie Royale Asturienne des Mines was founded. In 1987, the two companies merged to become Vieille Montagne France, and in 1993 they joined the Union Minière Group, which became the Umicore Group in September 2001.
