I strongly suggest you view part 1 before checking this part 2 and you also need to remember,
this was all done over many years by
the miners themselves on their break time between working
underground. Plus the fact that these photos had to be taken with very little available lighting!
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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.
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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.
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Not all of the work is
relief-based. There are many life
sized
statues that must have
taken a considerable amount of
time – months,
perhaps
even
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.
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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.
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~
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
~
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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. How different a few
minutes
reflection here must
have been to the noise and sweat of everyday
working life in the
mine.
