Silver and saltin Transylvania

The miners in Transylvania have been mining silver and salt for centuries. The wealth of Transylvania is hidden under the mountain ranges of the Carpathians: Archaeological finds show that gold and other non-ferrous metals were mined in addition to silver and salt as early as pre-Christian times. In the 13th century, the Hungarian king settled German miners here to dig up the natural resources. Since the 18th century – Transylvania is now part of the Austrian crown – the coal and steel industry has been systematically expanded and modernized with machine technology.

With the mining of gold and silver, artisans also move to Transylvania. The products of the Transylvanian goldsmiths are in great demand all over Europe.

For the first time, the exhibition showed the development of mining from the 16th to the 18th century using maps and drawings from the mining archive. More than a hundred goldsmith works from this period illustrated the high art of the Transylvanian craftsmen.