The historical archive of the Montevecchio mine is located inside the old manager's office building, in the same rooms where it was born and it has always been kept. This archive represents one of the most important parts of the whole documentation the mine has produced during 150 years of activity (from 1848, the year the seams started to be exploited by Giovanni Antonio Sanna, to 1991, the year the last shaft closed). Because of the complex course of events caused by the alternation of the mining companies we do not posess the whole documentation produced by the mine. At the moment, the documents we are in possession are located in different archives, but unfortunately, the documents produced during the first 10 years of mining activity are lost. We do not know anything about their existence or location and that is the reason why, from this point of view, the Montevecchio archive is so important. It is actually the only one which contains precious informations about these first years of mining activity (the oldest drawings date back to 1856).

The Montevecchio archive also has a great historical and cultural importance because the documents it keep contain interesting descriptions about many technical aspects of the industrial exploitation of the mine. One can find informations about geological studies, about the research carried out to find out the mineral seams, about the work inside the drifts, the methods of extracting minerals, the studies upon the products, the reinforcement of the drifts, the plans of the buildings, of the systems and of the engines. Actually, the archive is made up of the documents produced by the geological and technical offices. For the most part, they are drawings, plans and projects. For the international importance the mine had, for the validity of the technical stuff and for the hard work done by the two offices above, the Montevecchio archive represent a patrimony unique of its kind. In these archives one can find several geological studies upon Montevecchio, but also upon many of the most important Sardinian, Italian and European areas, plans to find and extract minerals with very advanced methods, a specialized bibliography, a collection of polished sections and thin sections, a mineralogic museum created by the mining company, hundreds of plans: industrual buildings, houses and engines.

Montevecchio was a world in evolution and its cartographic patrimony gives us the best evidence. In these archives one can also find all the documentation produced by the technical office of the Ingurtosu mine. In fact, when the "Monteponi & Montevecchio" joint stock company bought the Ingurtosu mine, in 1965, these documents were transferred to Montevecchio, and now, after the shutting down of the mine, they are part of the Montevecchio archives. In 1993, after the Montevecchio mine had ceased its activity, a big part of its archive was transferred to Iglesias. Fortunately, in 2002, after an agreement between the IGEA (the company that has taken over the direction of the mines after their closing) and the town of Guspini, these documents have been brought back to Montevecchio. Nowadays, the archive of the Montevecchio mine is concerned in a programme whose purpose is to reorganize and to catalogue the whole documentation kept inside the manager's office building. It also envisages the digitalized acquisition of a huge cartographic patrimony. The main goals of this programme are to guarantee the safeguard and the exploitation of the archives, and to create a library with a complete documentation about the history of Sardinian mines. This library will give to students, researchers and turists the possibility to consult the huge culrural patrimony kept in the archives.