Museum of Medieval Mining in the Ore Mountains

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Dippoldiswalde Castle

The museum for medieval mining in the Ore Mountains shows archaeological finds from the old mining under the town of Dippoldiswalde on 300 square meters . It was opened on August 24, 2018 in Dippoldiswalde Castle .

Archaeological exploration

During the floods of 2002 , the soaked soil gave way in many places in the urban area of ​​Dippoldiswalde. The reason for these sinkholes were underground cavities: in the meantime forgotten, abandoned silver mines, which were operated from about 1185 to 1260. (Striking mining damage was found, for example, in the Obertorplatz - Alte Altenberger Str. - Bus station area.) The Saxon Mining Authority Freiberg took over the custody work and in 2008 brought in the State Office for Archeology .

ArchaeoMontan project

From 2012 to 2018, experts examined these systems as part of the interdisciplinary and international project ArchaeoMontan. In cooperation between the Free State of Saxony and the Czech Republic , archaeologists, historians, surveyors, geologists and computer scientists were involved. The ArchaeoMontan project was funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund.

The Dippoldiswalder silver mines are of outstanding importance for understanding medieval mining for several reasons:

  • They were only influenced selectively by the later mining.
  • For the first time, underground mining from the Middle Ages could be examined on a large scale.
  • The organic finds, some of which are still in situ , are extremely well preserved.

The archaeological research had to take place parallel to the clearing and safekeeping work of the mountain security company commissioned with it.

Finds underground

In the Altenberger Straße area, a 2.0 x 2.2 meter reel chamber was examined at a depth of about 22 meters. Numerous fragments of the wooden reel still existed , including the two fir stilts and the beech reel supports. The hand cranks (reel horns) and the reel shaft (round tree), which were not found, had probably fallen into the blind shaft . The wooden parts of the reel and other pieces of wood ( climbing trees , slats) were recorded with a 3-D laser scanner, which made it possible to reconstruct the reel. Using the 14 C method , it could be dated to around 1220, a discovery that is unique in Europe.

Extensive installations for water drainage have also been documented to 25.50 meters archaeologists detected a line of up long to 4.20 meters wooden channels of U-shaped cross-section (fir, spruce, maple), supplemented by florets , gutters, water tanks and reservoirs, that had been carved out of the rock. The wooden gutters date from the 1220s and had a north-south gradient of about 0.30 meters. They probably diverted the pit water into the Rote Weißeritz .

The archaeologists examined and recovered a completely preserved drive that was 5.14 meters long, but quite narrow (0.24 meters). The oval step rungs were each about 50 cm apart. This trip was secured with a rope and firmly anchored wood; Remnants of this construction and the bast rope have been preserved.

In the Brauhofstrasse area, a three-legged stool, only 25 cm high, was recovered at a depth of around 20 meters. Such a seat during miner's work is not yet known from image sources. The lights were placed in a frustoconical alcove while they were working; several such niches were found at irregular intervals. In order to guide the conveying vessels over obstacles and to prevent them from getting stuck, the medieval miners used both boards and rods.

In two places in the rock , anthropomorphic reliefs worked roughly with mallets and iron were found, one of which could not be preserved, but the other (40 cm high, 20 cm wide) was recovered en bloc with an elaborate process.

Mining settlement on Obertorplatz

The picture of medieval mining in Dippoldiswalde was supplemented by archaeological investigations at the demolition site of the former Roter Hirsch inn on Obertorplatz. Traces of post holes, smelting furnaces, garbage pits and ceramics have been found here.

Exhibits

The organic materials had good preservation conditions in the moist wells. A restoration was first necessary above ground so that the artifacts could be permanently presented in a museum. Wooden objects were placed in a 40 percent polyethylene glycol solution and then freeze-dried to remove the water from them.

After plans for a new museum building in Dippoldiswalde came to nothing for financial reasons, the finds were shown in the traveling exhibition Silberrausch and Berggeschrey . These are well-preserved everyday objects and tools, such as shovels and scrapers , boards to secure the pits, the three-legged stool and the reel, which was reassembled from its individual wooden parts.

literature

  • Regina Smolnik (Ed.): Silberrausch and Berggeschrey. Archeology of medieval mining in Saxony and Bohemia. Stříbrná horečka a volání hor. Archeology středověkého hornictví v Sasku a Čechách. 2nd Edition. Dresden 2016. ISBN 978-3-95741-059-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ project ArchaeoMontan 2018. In: sachsen.de. Retrieved December 2, 2018 .
  2. ^ Christiane Hemker: The medieval silver mines of Dippoldiswalde . S. 25 .
  3. ^ Christiane Hemker: The medieval silver mines of Dippoldiswalde . S. 26-27 .
  4. ^ Christiane Hemker: The medieval silver mines of Dippoldiswalde. S. 27 .
  5. ^ Christiane Hemker: The medieval silver mines of Dippoldiswalde . S. 27-28 .
  6. ^ Heide Hönig, Susann Lentzsch: The mine under the bus station . S. 184 .
  7. ^ Heide Hönig, Susann Lentzsch: The mine under the bus station . S. 184-185 .
  8. ^ Christiane Hemker: The medieval silver mines of Dippoldiswalde . S. 28 .
  9. ↑ High medieval mining settlement discovered in Dippoldiswalde. In: Archeology in Saxony. sachsen.de, August 15, 2013, accessed on December 2, 2018 .