Crooked neck work

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Krummhälserarbeit (also: Krummhälser work; sometimes wrong than Krumm wood work called) was the name given to a variant of the longwall as in mining, mining methods in which the miners due to the hard work at very high tightness in longwall permanent deformation zuzogen to the spine, they were Recognized by their "crooked necks " throughout their lives .

Crooked neck work was widespread in Europe until the 18th century in the mining of copper slate and copper lettuce , especially in the Mansfeld region , in the Spessart, Wetterau and Harz Mountains. In these regions the copper deposits were mostly formed as shallow seams, often only 30 to 60 cm high. The mining sites were accordingly not much higher, so that adults could not work in these very shallow and deep structures. That is why only boys between the ages of 14 and 17 were used for crooked neck work, preferably with a graceful physique.

The work often took place lying down, lying on the left side on a narrow board. With a wedge hoe , the ores were extracted by cutting and poured into a trough. When it was full, the youngsters crawled to the next route , there the trough was emptied and they crawled back into the longwall. The hours of lying down with the head raised resulted in irreparable damage to the spine after months. The characteristic crooked necks emerged.

literature

  • Rainer Slotta : Technical monuments in the Federal Republic of Germany. Volume 4 / II Metal ore mining, German Mining Museum Bochum, 1983, p. 402 f.
  • Amédée Burat: Applied Geognosy or the Finding and Building of Usable Minerals , Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1844, p. 239 f, digitized , accessed on January 7, 2019.
  • Moritz Ferdinand Gätzschmann: The theory of the mining work: Third part - The mining theory , JG Engelhardt, Freiberg 1846. P. 160-165. Digitized version , accessed on January 7, 2019.
  • Note: MF Gätzschmann notes on p. 162 that the term "Krumphelse" is already in use at Agricola for the miners in the Mansfeld copper slate mining. Georgius Agricola : De re metallica , 1556.