Emilianus tunnel

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Tunnel access

The Emilianus tunnel is part of a Roman copper mine on the steep slope of the Saargau in the district of St. Barbara of the Saarland community of Wallerfangen in Germany .

The entrance is about 150 meters from the main road. The ancient tunnel with its inscription carved into stone is the only direct evidence of underground mining in Central Europe from Roman times. However, it is not the oldest underground mine in Central Europe. Already in the 5th millennium BC Chr. There were underground mining on flint and copper minerals. A tour of the mine is possible as part of a guided tour .

inscription

The so-called Emilianus inscription carved into stone at the tunnel entrance reads:

Incepta offi-
cina (A) emiliani
Nonis Mart (iis)
("The Aemilianus [mining] company started its work on March 7th.")
inscription

It documents the mining right according to Roman mining law (lex metallis dicta) , according to which operation must be started within 25 days and could not be dormant for longer than six months without the mining right lapsing. The law, which goes back to Emperor Hadrian and is partially handed down on the ore tablets of Vipasca, served the uniform regulation of mining in the provinces. The right to mine was documented by the Occupatio , the setting up of a plaque with the name of the owner and the date when mining began . Usually wooden panels were put up, which later fell into disrepair.

The inscription does not reveal a year. However, it is assumed that the dismantling in the 2nd / 3rd Century AD took place. A cast of the inscription can be viewed in the Wallerfangen Historical Museum. The mining probably served less for copper extraction than for the production of Wallerfanger blue from azurite and malachite .

1) Upper Emilianus tunnel
2) Lower Emilianus tunnel

Excavations

About 130 m to the west is the Bruss gallery, which was excavated in 1964 and also of Roman origin. The medieval azurite mining on the Blaufels and Limberg is also documented with calculations from 1492. The azurite mining continued around St. Barbara in post-Roman times.

In 1964 the first systematic excavations were carried out by what was then the Saarland Conservatory Office. In the course of these explorations, the Saarlouis district acquired the site and placed the tunnel under monument protection . An excavation campaign carried out by the Bochum mining museum ended in 1976 with the establishment of a visitor mine with the support of the Ensdorf mine .

In 1993 the lower Emilianus tunnel was uncovered and found in a state untouched by subsequent mining. The mining company Merchweiler secured the tunnel against landslides with a modern extension . Access is only for research purposes.

The investigations carried out by the Bochum Mining Museum in 2008 revealed that the Bruss adit was much larger than previously known. A shovel with a wooden handle and a broken leaf was found and another shaft rising 20 m from the end of the tunnel was discovered.

literature

  • Gabriele Körlin: Blue luxury goods - Roman azurite mining in Wallerfangen / Saar . In: German Mining Museum (ed.): The cut . tape 62 , no. 4 , 2010, p. 174-189 ( bergbaumuseum.de [PDF; 1.5 MB ; accessed on February 19, 2016]).

Web links

Commons : Emilianusstollen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ P. Allard (Ed.): Flint Mining in Prehistoric Europe . Interpreting the archaeological records (=  British Archaeological Reports International Series 1891 ). Oxford 2008.
  2. ↑ Ch. Groer: Early copper mining in Western Europe (=  university research on prehistoric archeology 157 ). Habelt, Bonn 2008.
  3. ↑ Emilianusstollen Wallerfangen-Sankt Barbara. Retrieved on October 8, 2012 (information page on the Saarland website).
  4. ↑ CIL 13, 4238 = AE 1983, 717 .
  5. ↑ History of research and significance Section of the text: Roman copper mining in Germany: New excavations at the Emilianus tunnel in St. Barbara (Saarland). Institute for Pre- and Protohistory University of Freiburg.
  6. ↑ Rom. Mining ( Memento from July 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Association for local research Wallerfangen eV
  7. ↑ Investigations 1993 Section of the text: Roman copper mining in Germany: New excavations at the Emilianus tunnel in St. Barbara (Saarland) , Institute for Prehistory, University of Freiburg
  8. ↑ Saarbruecker-Zeitung: An old shovel surprises archaeologists

Coordinates: 49 ° 20 '  N , 6 ° 41'  E