Wieliczka Salt Mine

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Wieliczka Salt Mine*
UNESCO World Heritage Site

Chapel of St. Kinga, deep within the Wieliczka salt mine.
State Party  Poland
Type Cultural
Criteria iv
Reference 32
Region** Europe and North America
Inscription history
Inscription 1978  (2nd Session)
Endangered 1989-1998
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.
** Region as classified by UNESCO.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine, located in the town of Wieliczka, is within Poland's Kraków metropolitan area. It had been until 2007 in continuous operation, producing table salt, since the 13th century. It was one of the world's oldest operating salt mines (the oldest being in Bochnia, Poland, some 20 kilometers distant from Wieliczka).

[edit] Touring

Active mining was discontinued in 1996 due to low salt prices and mine flooding. The mine remains a major tourist attraction.

Contents

The mine reaches a depth of 327 meters, and is over 300 km long.

The Wieliczka salt mine features a 3.5-km. tour for visitors (less than 1% of the length of the mine's passages) that includes statues of historic and mythic figures. The older works were sculpted by miners out of rock salt; more recent figures have been fashioned by contemporary artists. Even the crystals of the chandeliers are made from rock salt that has been dissolved and reconstituted to achieve a clear, glass-like appearance. The rock salt is naturally grey, in various shades like granite, so that the carvings resemble carved unpolished granite rather than having the white or crystalline appearance that many visitors expect. (The carvings appear white in the photos below; the actual carved figures are not white.)

Also featured is a large chamber with walls carved to resemble wooden chapels built by miners in earlier centuries; an underground lake; and exhibits on the history of salt mining. The mine is often referred to as "the Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland."

About 1.2 million people visit the mine each year.

Over the centuries, visitors to this site have included Nicolaus Copernicus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Dmitri Mendeleyev, Bolesław Prus, Ignacy Paderewski, Robert Baden-Powell, Jacob Bronowski (who filmed segments of The Ascent of Man in the mine), Karol Wojtyła (who later became Pope John Paul II), former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and many others.

During World War II, the salt mine was used by the occupying Germans as facilities for war-related production plants.

To get down to the 150-meter level of the mine, visitors must walk down a wooden stairway of some 400 steps. After the 3 kilometer tour of the mine's corridors, its chapels, statues and lake, visitors take an elevator back up to the surface. The elevator holds 36 people (9 per car) and takes roughly 30 seconds to reach the surface.

The salt mine helped inspire the Labyrinth scenes in Bolesław Prus' 1895 historical novel, Pharaoh.[1]

In 1978 the Wieliczka salt mine was placed on the original UNESCO roster of World Heritage Sites.

[edit] Photos

Wieliczka salt mine
Entrance to the Salt mine (Nadszybie Daniłowicza)
Entrance with
headframe
St Barbara's statue
St Barbara
carved in rock salt
Da Vinci's "The Last Supper", carved in salt
Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"
carved in a wall of rock salt
Old corridor

Old corridor
 
Salt statue of Pope John Paul II
Salt statue
of Pope John Paul II
Old winch in the museum
Old winch
in the museum
Bottom of Kunegunda's Shaft
Bottom of
St Kunegunda's Shaft
Chandelier in st. Kinga chapel
Chandelier carved in rock salt
at St Kinga's Chapel

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Christopher Kasparek, "Prus' Pharaoh and the Wieliczka Salt Mine," The Polish Review, 1997, no. 3, pp. 349–55.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 49°58′45″N 20°03′50″E / 49.97917°N 20.06389°E / 49.97917; 20.06389

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