Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn
The Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn , also known as the Waldglashütte Talsköpfe , was an early modern glassworks in Hils , which produced forest glass during the 17th century . It was on the Hilsbornwasser brook between Grünenplan and Eschershausen . Operating details are handed down in writing in a description by Matthäus Merian from 1654. The Glashüttenplatz, on which no buildings have been preserved above ground, is an archaeological monument . It has been examined and uncovered since 1996 by the archaeological monument preservation department of the Holzminden district .
Location and name
The forest glassworks was about 1.5 km southwest of the center of the " glassmaker's place " Grünenplan on the brook of Hilsbornwasser. The stream is now known as Green Planner Water and is dammed further above by the Hilsbornteich. The former Glashüttenplatz is located in a wooded valley directly on the L 484 state road between Grünenplan and Eschershausen. The name of the Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn results from its location on the Hilsbornwasser stream or from its proximity to the source ( -born ) of the stream. Many other glassworks had name endings with -born, because they were due to the operation of running water. The Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn is also known as the Waldglashütte Talsköpfe because of its location in the forest village of Talsköpf .
In the immediate vicinity of the forest glassworks under the Hilsborn (1630–1662 / 68) there were two more forest glassworks. The hut on the Hilsbornwiese (1624–?), Which was archaeologically examined in 1970, was about 800 meters further west on the forest meadow at Hilsbornteich and the hut at Glasebach (1650–1668), which was archaeologically examined in 1989, was about 1 km to the north on the Glasebachwiese.
General
Due to the abundance of wood in the wooded mountain ranges, numerous forest glassworks have been built in the Weserbergland since the Middle Ages . These conditions were also given when the Hils ridge, about 12 km long and five km wide , was raised. The previous locations of 18 medieval and 15 early modern glassworks can be proven through archival and archaeological research. It is assumed that the first forest glass works in Hils were built in the middle of the 12th century. The last forest glassworks ceased operations there in 1726. After that, there were only permanent factories, such as the Spiegelglashütte founded in 1744 on the Green Plan , from whose workers' estate Green Plan developed. In the village itself, glassmaking has continued to the present day and is now operated by the Schott company.
The remains of forest glassworks can be found today mainly in forest areas where no later destruction by agriculture took place. The former locations can be recognized by small, hill-like elevations made of furnace residues or production waste.
history
According to the archival sources, the forest glassworks under the Hilsborn was built around 1630. Shortly after the founding of the works, the glassworks was attacked around 1635/36 during the Thirty Years' War . The ducal chamber of Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig noted that the smelter was unable to pay the annual interest of 240 thalers. Production is said to have stood still for 12 weeks because the furnace was destroyed by soldiers.
According to some sources it produced glass until 1662, according to other sources until 1667/68. In both cases, it is an unusually long operating time, since forest glassworks continued to migrate after a few years of operation, as the forest in the vicinity was badly damaged after a few years. The reason was the enormous amount of wood used to heat the ovens and to obtain the potash flux . Usually the dukes of Braunschweig and Lüneburg only granted concessions for five to eight years. The exact reasons for the more than 30 years of operation are not known. One cause could have been the Thirty Years War and its consequences, so that the treaties were not controlled.
The builder of the hut was the smelter Hans Greiner. Shortly after it was founded, he died and his son-in-law Franz Seidensticker took over the hut until 1656. Then he handed the business over to his son Hans Gerhard Seidensticker and founded the Waldglashütte am Lakenborn in Solling . In his topography of the duchies of Braunschweig and Lüneburg from 1654, Matthäus Merian describes two glassworks in Hils as follows:
- “There are also two handsome glassworks in this forest, in each of which the 24 people continuously blow and work day and night. The glass is sold in large quantities within the country, but most of it outside of Bremen, Amsterdam and Holland, and from there to far other countries. "( Greene : Topographia Braunschweig Lüneburg)
Merian also reports on a division of the two glassworks, according to which there was one production area for hollow glass and another for window glass :
- "And every hut is divided into two sides, on one of which the wine and beer glasses, but on the other the scab and window glass, and beautiful light-colored window panes are made."
The described glassworks in Hils are probably the hut under the Hilsborn and the nearby hut on the Glasebachwiese.
From 1663 there is a directory of the hut dwellers under the Hilsborn through a church book entry in Delligsen . 39 people belonged to the hut, including 16 men, 15 women, six boys and two girls. These are the employees, their wives and children, and maids . There is also a head tax description from the Greene office from December 1663. It contains the names of the smelters who are mentioned with their function, for example as masters, journeyman, glass painter, craftsman, blower, straightener or boiler boy.
For a long time the locations of the traditional glassworks were forgotten. In 1928 the remains of a glassworks were found in the forest village of Talsköpfe, which was identified as the traditional hut under the Hilsborn. This led to the first excavations by a school principal in 1955.
Excavations
The first scientific investigation of the Glashüttenplatz was carried out in 1996 through an excavation by the archaeological monument preservation department of the Holzminden district. The reason for this was the ongoing prospecting and robbery excavations . Further excavations were carried out annually until 2001 and then sporadically until today (2014) without being completed. The excavation areas are protected against the effects of the weather with tarpaulins.
Excavation areas
Before the first excavation, the ground relief was mapped with its elevations, which indicated glass technical waste or kiln mounds. Immediately on the course of the stream, a group of four hills was noticed in a small area, some of which were cut by younger forest paths. A veil of technical glass waste was already visible above ground, with most of the production waste being found on the embankment of the stream. Another artificially created elevation was a little to the east of the group of hills in an area that was identified as the living area of the glassmakers. There, as seen from the group of hills, led a narrow road . A waste dump up to 1.5 meters high was recognized on the embankment of the stream, which was confirmed by a probe cut . On the opposite side of the stream, an artificial elevation in an oval shape was also found, in the area of which was the warehouse of the glassworks. The archaeologists see the discovery of glasses, Romans and bottles that were still in their straw packaging ready for dispatch as spectacular.
The excavations were carried out on the group of hills, as it was suspected that the furnaces of the former glassworks were close to each other. It can be assumed that the four ovens unearthed there were in a wooden workshop that was roofed over by a wooden structure. There was a wooden hut nearby with the remains of a tiled stove . It is therefore assumed that the hut belonged to a stoker who was responsible for lighting the working stoves around the clock.
Glass furnaces
One of the exposed glass ovens was an elongated, lying oven, which was built from red sandstone from Hils and clay . It is about seven meters long and five meters wide. A secondary oven was attached to the oven on two sides. It is likely that they were cooling furnaces that were heated by the main furnace, but operated at lower temperatures. The side walls of the furnace duct of the main furnace were preserved up to a height of 80 cm. The floor covering in the firing channel, hardened by the heat, consisted of clay or loam mixed with quartz sand. A burst harbor has been left on the stove bench . Other finds were fragments of models , harbors and glass.
Another uncovered furnace consisted of rough sandstone in irregular masonry that had been set in clay. A third furnace was made of the same building material and had a long furnace duct and a round melting chamber. With him, the stones still in the beginning showed a barrel-shaped vault. A strong reddening of fire on the stones and the porosity of the stone material indicated an intensive firing with high temperatures. The fourth stove was also made of sandstone and was covered by a younger forest path.
Residential buildings
When forest work was carried out to the east and a little away from Glashüttenplatz in 1999, household items from the glassmakers at the time emerged from the ground. During closer investigations, the remains of a residential building were discovered. At the point there was a layer of burn in the loamy forest floor, which was reddened. In the layer of fire lay blackened glass, including a fragment of an imperial eagle barrel with the year 1662. The recovered glass remains were Venetian glass and faience. Ceramic shards found indicate that the glassmakers used local stoneware from the Duingen, Coppengrave, Bad Münder and Völksen areas. The foundation of a tiled stove was also discovered. The dimensions of the building could not be determined because no post holes were found and no foundation was available. It can be assumed that the building was made of wood, as prescribed by the sovereign to the glassmakers in Hils. When the company was closed, the production and residential buildings had to be demolished. It can therefore be assumed that the discovered building was a wooden structure that the smelters burned down when they left the square around 1667/68.
Raid
The historically handed down raid around 1635/36 during the Thirty Years' War was archaeologically proven in the excavations on the basis of numerous relics. During the systematic search of the smelter site with metal detectors in 2013 and 2014, around 100 projectiles, including musket and pistol balls made of lead, were documented. The sites of discovery allow conclusions to be drawn about the location of the attackers who fired on the glassmaker's buildings. In addition, the remains of a mortar projectile 30 cm in diameter and a sword pommel were found.
Found objects
In the area of the exposed glassworks furnaces, there were glassmakers' tools, such as glassmaker's scissors and iron pliers, as well as clay blow molds. A large number of hollow glass fragments were found opposite the production site on the north side of the stream, in a flat artificial elevation. The remains of the glass lay in a layer of charred wooden planks. From this it can be concluded that the warehouse of the glassworks stood here, which burned down. Among the finds were Romans made of greenish glass on a thread foot, whose spherical goblets were mostly broken. The received lower parts were decorated with nubs . Other glasses found were goblets with a wart decoration. Fragments of beer glasses in a honey-yellow color were also found. Other finds were small bottles, which were deposited next to each other as they were once for shipping. Shards of window glass were found made of green and brown glass material. With 28 finds, the series production of smoothing glasses as the glass forerunner of the flat iron was found for the first time in Central Europe .
Imperial eagle tankard from 1662, reassembled from fragments
Chalice glasses with wart decoration
Glassmaker's scissors and glassmaker's tongs
presentation
The good state of preservation of the glass furnaces, which had been excavated since 1996, provided an opportunity to present them to the professional world. This led to a scientific conference in Grünenplan in 2000 , which was connected to the world exhibition Expo 2000 taking place in Hanover . 70 scientists and glass researchers from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic took part in the event, known as the 1st International Symposium on Archaeological Research into Medieval and Early Modern Glassworks in Europe . The series of events started in Grünenplan was continued in other places in Germany in the following years.
Today (2014) a number of finds from the excavations are shown in the Erich Mäder Glass Museum in Grünenplan, where an exposed glass furnace from the glassworks was also rebuilt. On the Open Monument Day on September 14, 2014, a special exhibition lasting several weeks was opened in the Glass Museum under the title "Forest Glass 1632-1667" with recent finds from the excavation site. This is also the occasion for the autumn 2014 conference of the Westphalian Glass Forum in the museum.
literature
- Wilhelm Becker: The Princely Braunschweigischen glassworks , 2. The oldest Hilshütten. In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. 1927
- Otto Bloss: The older glassworks in southern Lower Saxony (= publications by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen. Volume 9). Lax, Hildesheim 1977, ISBN 3-7848-3639-9 , pp. 141-142.
- Christian Leiber : History of the forest glassworks in Hils. In: 250 Years of the Green Plan 1744-1994 , Alfeld, 1994
- Christian Leiber: The eagle on the glass. In: Archeology in Lower Saxony . Pp. 116-119, 2001
- Christian Leiber: Preliminary report on the excavations of an early modern glassworks near Grünenplan in Hils. In: Glashütten in conversation. Reports and materials from the 2nd International Symposium on Archaeological Research into Medieval and Early Modern Glassworks in Europe , pp. 18-26, Ed .: Peter Steppuhn on behalf of the Kulturkreis Glashütten eV, Lübeck 2003, ISBN 3-7950-0795-X .
- Christian Leiber: Work and life in medieval and early modern glassworks in the Leine-Weser Bergland in southern Lower Saxony. In: E. Ring (Ed.), Glass culture in Lower Saxony. Tableware and household glass from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Husum, 2003.
- Christian Leiber: A forest glassworks from the 17th century near Grünenplan in Hils In: Mamoun Fansa , Frank Both, Henning Haßmann (editor): Archeology | Land | Lower Saxony. 400,000 years of history. Landesmuseum für Natur und Mensch, Oldenburg 2004. Pages 275–280.
- Michael Funk: Glass from the Weser - yesterday, today and tomorrow Sketches for a regional branch history as: Lecture at the 82nd Glass Technology Conference on May 20, 2008 in Hameln , 2008 ( online , pdf)
- Christian Leiber: Assault on a forest glassworks in Hils near Grünenplan during the Thirty Years War. In: From the Weser into the world. Festschrift for Hans-Georg Stephan on the occasion of his 65th birthday , ed. Tobias Gärtner, Sonja König, Langenweissbach, 2015, ISBN 978-3-95741-035-1 .
Web links
- Newspaper article: 260 years of Grünenplan: The future of the past. ( Memento from September 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: T Tages Anzeiger . June 20, 2009 (On the glassmaking history of the place).
- History of Grünenplan as a place for glassmaking ( memento from March 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF: with mention of the “Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn”).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Greene. In: Topographia Braunschweig Lüneburg. Merian, Frankfurt am Main 1654, pp. 96-97 ( Wikisource ).
- ^ Christian Leiber: 1st International Symposium on Archaeological Research into Medieval and Early Modern Glassworks in Europe in Grünenplan , in: Glassworks in Conversation. Reports and materials from the 2nd International Symposium on Archaeological Research in Medieval and Early Modern Glassworks in Europe , pp. 16-17, see literature.
- ^ Events for the International Museum Day on May 18, 2014
Coordinates: 51 ° 56 '51.2 " N , 9 ° 43' 31.7" E