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It was hard work: one of the most common finds from the Bronze Age is leather palm protectors.
Yesterday, I was able to cross off another archaeological site from my ‘must-see-one-day’ list. It was Hallstatt, the settlement that has given its name to the early Iron Age of Europe’s past. First, I was lucky to visit the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where there is a major section devoted to this site. In 1846, the managing director of the Hallstatt salt mines, Johann Ramsauer, discovered an Iron Age cemetery high on a narrow valley above the Hallstatt lake. Over the next 17 years, he excavated 980 graves, each illustrated with accurate drawings. It is now estimated that at least another 3,000 graves await excavation, and work is progressing annually. Some of the dead were inhumed, and others cremated. The pictures reveal a wealthy community of salt miners, some of the dead having been buried with exotic amber and ivory ornaments. The western part of the cemetery contains elite warriors equipped with swords or daggers, some in full armour and interred with their chariots, though it is hard to imagine a chariot being of any use on the rugged mountain slope. I was also lucky to have the chance to meet Konstantina Saliari, who has analysed the animal bones from Iron Age Hallstatt. The assemblage is dominated by young pigs, and, as she described, the presence of jaw bones – but no skulls – reflects the fact that the jaws were used as hooks to transport haunches of pork for salting.
Hallstatt town is unforgettably beautiful and its UNESCO World Heritage status has brought it international attention. So, son Tom and I found our way to the ticket office well before opening time, to avoid the inevitable queue. We were soon on the cable car that took us up 700m to the area of the salt mines. There was then a 700m walk to the entrance, where we were given white suits to wear within the mine, which has a steady temperature of about 8°C. And so, we descended into the depths.
Salt extraction began during the Bronze Age. Salt also has the supreme advantage for the archaeologist of preserving just about every sort of organic substance. Thanks to dendrochronology, we know that Bronze Age salt mining took place between 1158-1063 BC, before being halted by a catastrophic rock slide. It recommenced in the Iron Age, between 750-662 BC, and it continued unabated from the Middle Ages to this day.
The recent excavations have revealed how mining techniques during those two prehistoric phases differed. The earlier involved the creation of broad shafts that penetrated down 100m or more to reach the salt. Illumination was by wooden tapers, and the salt was extracted in small chips, with bronze picks hafted onto wood. It was hard work, and one of the most common finds from the Bronze Age is leather palm protectors. These would have been very useful when mining and handling the ropes that were used to heave out heavy loads of salt. Recently, archaeologists have made a unique find, a perfectly preserved wooden staircase of spruce, fir, and copper beech. Over a metre wide, it would have allowed the passage of miners both descending to mine and ascending with 30kg rucksacks brimming with blocks of pure salt. By counting the growth rings in the wood and calibrating them with a tree-ring calendar that stretches to the present, the staircase has been dated to 1108 BC. No Bronze Age burials have been found yet, so the health and social status of the miners are not documented, save that recently some surviving human faeces have been found, revealing sufferers of roundworm and whipworm infestations.
With the resumption of mining during the Iron Age, we have much more detailed information on how it was organised and about the miners themselves. They cut galleries into the salt lodes and used their bronze picks in the manner of a scythe to cut out large chunks of rock salt. These were placed into leather rucksacks that could take up to 30kg for transport to the surface. Again, tapers were used to illuminate the scene, sometimes carried in the mouth, because some have been found with toothmarks on them. The miners also lit fires down below, the smoke clearly being responsible for their high incidence of sinus and nasal infections. Mining was hard work and led to healthy appetites. Food was cooked in the mine in commercial quantities, and served in wooden pots. In the absence of spoons or forks, we assume that it either took the form of soup or miners used their fingers to feed themselves. Residues left on the pots show that the diet was based on a stew of millet, beans, and barley, while the dental plaque also attests to a healthy intake of pork, blue cheese, and – of course – plenty of beer. It must be said that during the Iron Age sanitation was minimal, for the mining debris includes an awful lot of human faeces. These once again reveal the diet and the almost universal presence of roundworm and whipworm eggs.
Mining community
Who worked below? It was not your 20th-century British colliery of 100% male miners. An analysis of the spinal deformations in the Iron Age graves shows that hard lifting was undertaken by men, women, and children. A leather cap has been found that would have fitted a child of about 11-12 years. Some of the shoes, too, were sized for babies and children. It seems that the whole community was involved. One asks, too, how much salt was produced and where did it go? A recent estimate ended with 1,000kg of salt a day, which would have called on 100 goats saddled with 10kg sacks to take the product down to the lakeside, where doubtless boats awaited. Hardly any other salt mines are known at that time, so the trade routes leading out of Hallstatt must have gone to all points of the compass. The community thrived on the wealth generated by the salt trade, bringing in return exotic and prestigious artefacts. These included Baltic amber, while the fabrics that have survived were of the highest quality and dyed in vibrant colours.
The salt itself was a vital ingredient in a sustainable food supply. It seems from the faunal evidence that rather than send salt to piggeries, the pigs were brought to Hallstatt for the pork to be salted down. The Hallstatt lake teems with fish, and these too were preserved with salt. Nor did mining stop in the bitter cold of an Alpine winter. 90% of all wood used in the mine came from trees that were felled in the autumn and winter, when the temperature in the mine would have been much warmer than out in the icy air.
I find it fascinating to compare the Hallstatt salt works with those I have investigated in Southeast Asia. Where I work, there is no mining, as described in CWA 128. Villagers scrape the surface of the soil, where salt crystallises, mix it with water, and boil the brine until just the salt is left in a hollowed tree. The salt is used just as it was in Iron Age Austria, for preserving fish, and, just as the Hallstatt salt continues to be mined today, so too a huge salt works is located where I work in Northeast Thailand. I do wonder if those chariot burials and armed warriors in the Hallstatt cemetery were the ultimate elite beneficiaries of the salt trade.
It was indeed, a great day yesterday, but there was more to come. As we drove back to Vienna, Tom left the motorway to follow the course of the Danube until we turned down a narrow lane into the village of Willendorf. There we climbed up to the very place where, on the 7 August 1908, Josef Szombathy discovered the Venus of Willendorf. This superb, 28,000-year-old figurine has a room to itself in the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Parched by the 32°C heat, we retired to a welcome hostelry for a cup of tea, where the owner told us that it was to this very place that Szombathy went to celebrate his discovery (but with more, I assume, than a cup of English Breakfast).
Charles Higham is a Professor at Otago University in New Zealand, and an authority on Cambodia's Angkor civilisation and Ban Non Wat in Thailand.
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