Hallstatt#

Hallstatt, Upper Austria, market town in the district of Gmunden, alt. 508 m, pop. 1,153, area 59.80 km2, on the south-western shore of Lake Hallstatt, at the foot of the Plassen mountain (1,953 m), in the Salzkammergut region; centre of navigation on Lake Hallstatt. - School: Hoehere Technische Lehranstalt (technical/engineering school); culture and convention centre, Hallstaetter mountain railway to the Rudolfsturm tower (855 m); west of Hallstatt lies the Salzberg mountain (oldest salt mine in the world, cemeteries from the Hallstatt and La Tène periods as well as exhibition mine); pre-historic museum (finds from the cemetery and the pre-historic salt-mining sites), museum of local history and culture, charnel house (due to lack of space in the cemetery, the right to a grave expires after 10 to 15 years); Corpus Christi procession with boats on the lake (since 1628); salt mining, brine pipeline to Ebensee; tourism (80,936 overnight stays). - Documented exploitation of salt deposits from 1200 B.C. until Roman rule; there is also evidence of salt mining in the region dating from the early Middle Ages. The burial field of Hallstatt (exploration from 1846 onwards by J. Ramsauer, who excavated 980 graves and approx. 19,500 objects) is one Austria´s most important and best-known archaeological sites and gave the later Iron Age in Central and Western Europe the name of Hallstatt period ( Hallstatt Culture); magnificent funerary objects are evidence of the wealth accumulated through salt mining; Roman settlement in the Lahn quarter at the entrance to the Echerntal valley; curtain waterfalls of the Spraterbach stream, Waldbachstrub (95 m high waterfalls), glacier garden. - Late-Gothic hall church (previous building from 1320) with twin choir finished 1519, above portal (1519), frescoes (1490-1507), ornate late-Gothic twin winged altarpiece (around 1505-1520, attributed to L. Astl), painted winged altarpiece (1450-1460), monumental late-Gothic Crucifixion group (1510-1520) by the circle of artists around L. Astl; Gothic memorial chapel in the cemetery, glass painting St. Michael (1440/50); neo-Gothic Protestant church (1862); Calvary chapel (in the Lahn quarter), Baroque centralised building (1711), stations of the Cross; Trinity column (1744); houses from the 15th and 16th  centuries. - In 1997 the Hallstatt-Dachstein-Salzkammergut area was declared a cultural landscape and placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Literature#