Spy furnace marble
The spy oven marble comes on the pasture small Aibel in Sankt Georgen im Lavanttal in the Austrian Carinthia ago. The quarry is located at around 1,060 meters above sea level on the western slope of the Koralpe . This quarry is the best described Roman quarry in Carinthia and it was probably used until the 4th / 5th centuries. Operated by the Romans in the 19th century. Spitzelofen marble found mainly regionally limited use in the Roman Noricum ; Historically significant is a lettering for Roman deities in a quarry wall.
Surname
The word " oven " refers to visible boulders or rock walls in the Saualpe and Koralpegebiet. Another explanation comes from Fritz Lochner von Hüttenbach after the rocky slopes on the south side, which are warmed by the heat of the sun, are called stoves and tapered corridors are called Spitz , as well as people who live on pointed properties are called Spitzl .
Historical background
That the quarry work ended abruptly is evident from the unprocessed marble blocks left on the quarry floor and on the edge of the forest, and it is assumed that there has been a high probability that no quarry work has taken place since Roman times. The end of the quarry work was probably caused by the migration of peoples taking place in the Alpine region. At the end of the 19th century, the owner at the time, Gutsverwaltung Schütte, had the site on the quarry wall leveled and from 1920 to 1922 Gudmund Schütte further exposed the quarry walls. In 1930, more debris was removed to a depth of 7 meters. In 1995, the ground monument was cleared of wood and partially removed earth.
Rock description
This rock is a low mica marble with over 98 percent calcium carbonate , which is coarse-grained (up to 5 mm grain size) and banded white-gray. It contains graphite , pyrite and light mica . These material admixtures from the original rock lead to typical decor, the so-called marbling.
geology
The Koralpe mountain range has a complex geological structure. In mica slate , gneiss and amphibolites , marble trains are embedded, as in the spy furnace. The Roman spy furnace quarry is a small regional marble deposit that spreads elsewhere on the Koralpe and therefore has several other mining sites that have been used in recent times.
Quarry
Roman quarry
In the quarry of the Spitzelofen marble, four demolition walls can be seen coming from the south, on which the traces of the Roman marble extraction can be recognized by the grooves that the stonemasons hammered into the walls of the quarry with a pointed hammer or two-pointed hammer . A hammer, a bicorn and an iron riving knife were found in the Spitzelofen quarry.In particular, on the northern wall of the demolition, incompletely machined cuboids can be seen, which are stepped in the rock. Below the tunnel hole, the third wall and in front of the second wall there are blanks in the rock that have not yet been loosened.
It was dismantled using the manual cutting method , first of all the stone blocks were cut free all around on four sides, then split off from the ground with wedges and they are said to have been transported on wooden beams by oxen into the valley. This mining site was first described by Eichhorn in 1817 as a relic of Roman quarrying activities. The structures left behind by the quarry suggest that there was extensive stone mining in the Roman period.
The quarry workers were Roman slaves and there is said to have been a field kitchen, field blacksmith and carpentry shop in the quarry. It is also assumed that lime was burned from the marble rock rubble that resulted from stone extraction and stone processing. An investigation in the area around the quarry for kilns, pits or kilns for lime production has not yet taken place.
Another unexplained peculiarity as a rectangular recess is located in the upper part of the fourth quarry wall to the north, which suggests the earlier existence of a stone tablet and above the quarry there is a niche made by cutting technology in this marble deposit. According to Konopasek, both of these factors suggest that the quarry could have been a Roman sanctuary.
Roman dedicatory inscription
In the quarry wall above the tunnel mouth hole, at a height of twelve meters, a Roman script is stamped as dedication to a sanctuary, which, according to the font used, is likely to date from the 3rd century and has become known as the «spy furnace monument»:
The dedicatory inscription has been interpreted in different ways; for example, another translation speaks of the "sublime god of the forests and the quarries". The writing is difficult to recognize because it is colored black and encrusted by the seeping water that has absorbed the earth's constituents. Furthermore, algae and lichens have settled there.
The exact location of the presumed sanctuary is not known. Interpretations assume that it is either the rock basin itself or that there was a wooden chapel there that burned down.
The forest god who neither had a temple nor formed a cult in the Roman state is called Silvanus. Silvanus was worshiped in various ways in the west of the Roman Empire; Spelled flour , bacon , meat and wine were offered to him . Saxanus was the deity of rocks and quarries. Both gods were connected and it is assumed that the quarry was consecrated by the quarry owner.
stollen
Speculations that under the inscription there is a haunted castle, a silver treasure or that a ghost turned rock debris into gold, led treasure hunters to find a tunnel 2 meters high and 2 meters wide with a depth of 3.5 meters in around 1890 blasted the quarry wall at a height of 2.5 meters above the current quarry floor. Any further damage that might occur was stopped in 1890 by the Klagenfurt Revierbergamt. This quarry is the best documented in Carinthia, and this marble was found among others. a. Used in the ancient city on the Magdalensberg for grave steles.
today
Rock mining no longer takes place in the ground monument and the area is frequently visited by hikers.
In order to secure and further research the history of the quarry, Konopasek made demands in 2006, such as securing the dedicatory inscription, uncovering the quarry floor and excavation to the floor from Roman times, marking the Roman transport routes, measuring the unfinished stones , searching for Traces of lime production, measurement of markings, signs and letters in the quarry and exploration of a cut-out niche near the quarry.
The marble quarry is also used for cultural events, such as in 2004 for a special performance of the play "NYCTIVOE" by the Greek Dimitris Lyacos with six masks designed by the sculptor Fritz Unegg .
literature
- Alois Kieslinger : The usable rocks of Carinthia. In: Carinthia II. Sonderheft 17, Verlag des Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein für Kärnten, Klagenfurt 1956, ISSN 0375-6068 , pp. 1–348 ( limited preview in the Google book search, PDF (368.3 MB) on ZOBODAT )
- Robert Konopasek: Spitzelofen, a marble quarry from Roman times in Carinthia. In: Res montanarum 38, 2006, pp. 44-65.
- Georg Lux, Helmuth Weichselbraun: Derelict & Forgotten - Lost Places in the Alps-Adriatic Region . Styria Verlag, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2017, ISBN 978-3-222-13551-4 . Pp. 102-105.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Kieslinger: Rocks of Carinthia . P. 267 (see literature)
- ↑ a b Robert Konopasek: Spy stove. P. 45 (see literature)
- ↑ a b Alexandra Steiner: South Norse grave elements and their marble on Frankfurter Electronic Rundschau zur Altertumskunde 1 (2006) Excerpt from a diploma thesis (PDF; 386 kB)
- ^ Letter from Fritz v. Lochner from October 20 and November 3, 2004 to Konopasek: In: Robert Konopasek: Spitzelofen. P. 48 and appendix p. 64
- ↑ a b Robert Konopasek: Spy stove. P. 48
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 46
- ^ Kieslinger: Rocks of Carinthia . Pp. 262, 268
- ^ Kieslinger: Rocks of Carinthia . Pp. 269-270
- ↑ Illustration of the Roman traces of processing on ubi-erat-lupa.org ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 19, 2010
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 51
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 54
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 55
- ^ A b Kieslinger: Rocks of Carinthia . P. 268
- ^ Franz Jantsch: Ancient soil research in Carinthia . In: Carinthia I 121, 1931, pp. 1-17.
- ↑ History of the community of St. Georgen on the website sankt-georgen.at ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 15, 2010
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 52/53
- ↑ a b c d Robert Konopasek: Spitzelofen, p. 49
- ↑ Interpretation on getfuture.at ( Memento of the original dated December 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved July 3, 2010
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 50
- ↑ Robert Konopasek: spy oven. P. 63 f.
- ↑ Dimitris Lyacos, Fritz Unegg: NYCTIVOE on Austrian Cultural Forum from March 2004 ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 178 kB). Retrieved June 15, 2010
- ↑ Information on the Kärnöl website (kaernoel.at) . Retrieved June 15, 2010
Coordinates: 46 ° 44 ′ 32.6 ″ N , 14 ° 56 ′ 2.2 ″ E