Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape
UNESCO site
Date of Insscription: 1997
The Hallstatt-Dachstein alpine landscape, part of the
Salzkammergut, and thus of the Eastern Alps, is one of visual drama with huge
mountains rising abruptly form narrow valleys. Its prosperity since mediaeval
times has been based on salt mining, focused on the town of Hallstatt, a name
meaning salt settlement that testifies to its primary function.
Systematic salt production was being carried out in the
region as early as the Middle Bronze Age, (the late 2nd millennium BC), when
natural brine was captured in vessels and evaporated. Underground mining for
salt began at the end of the late Bronze Age and resumed in the 8th century BC
when archaeological evidence shows a flourishing, stratified and highly
organised Iron Age society with wide trade links across Europe and now known as
the Hallstatt Culture. Salt mining continued in Roman times and was then
revived in the 14th century. The large amounts of timber needed for the mines
and for evaporating the salt where extracted from the extensive upland forests,
which since the 16th century were controlled and managed directly by the
Austrian Crown. The Town of Hallstatt was re-built in late Baroque style after
a fire in 1750 destroyed the timber buildings.
The beauty of the alpine landscape, with its higher pastures
used for the summer grazing of sheep and cattle since prehistoric times as part
of the process of transhumance, which still today gives the valley communities
rights of access to specific grazing areas, was 'discovered' in the early 19th
century by writers, such as Adalbert Stifler, novelist, and the dramatic poet
Franz Grillparzer, and most of the leading paintings of the Biedermeier school.
They were in turn followed by tourists and this led to the development of
hotels and brine baths for visitors.
The landscape is exceptional as a complex of great
scientific interest and immense natural power that has played a vital role in
human history reflected in the impact of farmer-miners over millennia, in the
way mining has transformed the interior of the mountain and through the artists
and writers that conveyed its harmony and beauty.
Source: unesco.org
Thank you so much ChristinaB!
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