Early, probably already during the 12th century, people here in the Ignaberga area began to quarry into the mountain through shallow open-pit mines to reach the useful chalk limestone. The limestone was primarily used as building material, including in the construction of Ignaberga's old church, a
Romanesque church building which was completed around 1100.
Over time, the transition was made from shallow open-pit mines to a more pre-industrial mining through underground operations. Near the Ignaberga quarry, which is still active today, several collapsed mines can be found, a clear indication of early underground mining. From the early 1600s to the mid-1700s, there was feverish underground activity. The traces of these mines appear as deep craters in the ground as they used unsafe mining techniques. When miners could no longer stand on the mine floor to extract limestone blocks from the ceiling, ladders or scaffolding were erected. This meant that impressive but unstable church vault-like halls were created, up to 7 meters in height.
During his journey through Skåne in 1749, Carl Linnaeus visited the Vedhygge mine, about 3 km from Tykarpsgrottan. Here, Linnaeus noted that "if the farmers had understood to construct pillars as in other mines, no workers would have been unlucky here". The consequence was that the ceiling height was lowered, and more supporting pillars were left by the farmers. The result of the new mining technique is clearly visible in Tykarpsgrottan. The mine, dating back to the 1750s, and like the other mines in the area collectively owned by the local farmers, has a significantly lower ceiling height and considerably more pillars than the older mines.
A common aspect of underground mining in both the older and younger mines is the choice of tools. In limestone mining, picks and chisels were used, and the traces of these tools can still be seen on pillars and walls today. In the older mines, the marks are asymmetrically placed, unlike the younger mines where straight lines from the cutting tools indicate the extraction of even limestone blocks. The demanding task of chiseling out limestone blocks was the men's job, while women carried the limestone blocks above ground. The amount of limestone extracted was measured in "tjyng" per year. One "tjyng" is said to correspond to approximately 250 liters. By carving lines on pillars and walls, they knew how much limestone each farmer extracted.
Larger farms had lime kilns, so-called lime ovens, in which the limestone blocks were burned into mortar lime. These kilns were all privately owned, and some of them are still preserved today. The kilns were constructed of dry-laid stone, horseshoe-shaped, and could hold between 10 to 30 m³. After burning, the lime was sold or exchanged for other goods. The price depended entirely on the quality of the lime, where the pure white lime commanded a higher price than the impure gray. Limestone mining was very profitable and provided a good source of income for the local farmers in addition to agriculture.
