This is fascinating.Enjoy,Lee
Polish Salt Mine ... Awesome!
List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:42:41 -0700
:
Here is something you don’t see every day!!
Deep underground in Poland lies something remarkable but little known outside
Eastern Europe .
For centuries, miners have extracted salt there, but left behind things quite
startling and unique.
Take a look at the most unusual salt mine in the world.
>From the outside, Wieliczka Salt Mine doesn't look extraordinary. It looks
>extremely well kept for a place that hasn't minded any salt for over ten years
>but apart from that it looks ordinary. However, over two hundred meters below
>ground it holds an astonishing secret. This is the salt mine that became an
>art gallery, cathedral
And underground
lake.
Situated in the Krakow area, Wieliczka is a small town of close to twenty
thousand inhabitants. It was founded in the twelfth century by a local Duke to
mine the rich deposits of salt that lie beneath. Until 1996 it did just that
but the generations of miners did more than just extract. They left behind them
a breathtaking record of
their time underground in the shape of statues of mythic, historical and
religious figures. They even created their own chapels in which to pray.
Perhaps their most astonishing legacy is the huge underground cathedral they
left behind for posterity.
It may feel like you are in the middle of a Jules Verne adventure as you
descend in to the depths of the world.
After a one hundred and fifty meter climb down wooden stairs the visitor to the
salt mine will see some amazing sites. About the most astounding in terms of
its sheer size and audacity is the Chapel of Saint Kinga.
The Polish people have for many centuries been devout Catholics and this was
more than just a long term hobby to relieve the boredom of being underground.
This was an act of worship.
Amazingly, even the chandeliers in the cathedral are made of salt. It was not
simply hewn from the ground and then thrown together; however, the process is
rather more painstaking for the lighting. After extraction the rock salt was
first of all dissolved. It was then reconstituted with the impurities taken out
so that it achieved a glass-like finish. The chandeliers are what many visitors
think the rest of the cavernous mine will
be like as they have a picture in their minds of salt as they would sprinkle on
their meals! However, the rock salt occurs naturally in different shades of
grey (something like you would expect granite to look like).
Still, that doesn't stop well over one million visitors (mainly from Poland and
its eastern European neighbours) from visiting the mine to see, amongst other
things, how salt was mined in the past.
For safety reasons less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but
even that is still almost four kilometres in length - more than enough to weary
the average tourist after an hour or two. The mine was closed for two reasons -
the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to extract here.
Also, the mine was slowly
flooding - another reason why visitors are restricted to certain areas only.
The religious carvings are, in reality, what draw many to this mine - as much
for their amazing verisimilitude as for their Christian aesthetics. The above
shows Jesus appearing to the apostles after the crucifixion. He shows the
doubter, Saint Thomas , the wounds on his wrists.
Another remarkable carving, this time a take on The Last Supper. The work and
patience that must have gone into the creation of these sculptures is
extraordinary. One wonders what the miners would have thought of their work
going on general display? They came to
be quite used to it, in fact, even during the mine's busiest period in the
nineteenth century. The cream of Europe 's thinkers visited the site - you can
still see many of their names in the old visitor's books on display.
These reliefs are perhaps among some of the most iconographic works of
Christian folk art in the world and really do deserve to be shown. It comes as
little surprise to learn that the mine was placed on the original list of
UNESCO World Heritage Sites back in 1978.
Not all of the work is relief-based. There are many life sized statues that
must have taken a considerable amount of time - months, years - to create.
Within the confines of the mine there is also much to be learned about the
miners from the machinery and tools that they used - many of which are on
display and are centuries old. A catastrophic flood in 1992 dealt the last blow
to commercial salt mining in the area and now the mine functions purely as a
tourist attraction. Brine is, however, still extracted from the mine - and then
evaporated to produce some salt, but hardly on the ancient scale. If this was
not done, then the mines would soon become flooded once again.
Not all of the statues have a religious or symbolic imagery attached to them.
The miners had a sense of humor, after all! Here can be seen their own take on
the legend of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The intricately carved dwarves
must have seemed to some of the miners a kind of ironic depiction of their own
work.
The miners even threw in a dragon for good measure! Certainly, they may have
whistled while they did it but the conditions in the salt mine were far from
comfortable and the hours were long - the fact that it was subterranean could
hardly have added to the excitement of going to work each morning.
To cap it all there is even an underground lake, lit by subdued electricity and
candles. This is perhaps where the old legends of lakes to the underworld and
Catholic imagery of the saints work together to best leave a lasting impression
of the
mine.
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