Thursday, June 30, 2022

The Rammelsberg Mine

It all started when a knight, Ritter Ramm, was sent by Emperor Otto I to find game while visiting Harzburg. It was winter, with snow everywhere, but Ramm saw a track to follow. The track went high up a mountain into dense forest. When the trail became too steep for the safety of his horse, he decided to go on foot, tying the horse to a tree. Ramm found plenty of game, and returned to his horse. The horse, restless, had scraped the ground with its hoof, exposing a vein of something shiny. Ramm dug up a few pieces of the ore to take back to the Emperor. (Not the first time a horse led to an important place.)

Otto sent miners to to dig and open shafts; they settled in Goslar, the town just north of the mountain. Thus were the silver mines of Rammelsberg established in 968 (according to Widukind of Corvey, a Saxon historian). The mine became such an important source of imperial wealth that Henry II of Germany in 1005 had an Imperial Palace built in Goslar. The mines were used as an imperial bargaining chip and captured/destroyed/rebuilt over the years during different political disputes, but eventually became the responsibility of Goslar in 1359. Possession/control would keep changing over the centuries, including by the Hanseatic League, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Henry V of Brunswick, the Kingdom of Hanover, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Nazis in the 1930s.

The ores from Rammelsberg produced silver, lead, copper, and zinc. An estimated 30 million tons was extracted over the thousand-year period since its discovery, providing the silver for countless millions of coins, etc. It was closed down on 30 June 1988. Goslar has turned the Rammelsberg mine complex into a museum.

While on the subject of precious metals and coins, I said yesterday that I would tell you about a man with "too much" gold, and I will: tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.