!!!Hallstatt

Hallstatt, Upper Austria, market town in the district of Gmunden, alt. 
508 m, pop. 1,153, area 59.80 km%%sup 2/%, 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 15%%sup th/%  and 16%%sup th/%  centuries. - In 1997 the 
Hallstatt-Dachstein-Salzkammergut area was declared a cultural 
landscape and placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

!Literature
R. Lehr, Hallstatt Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1979; 
H. J. Urstoeger, Hallstatt Chronik, 1994; H. Unterberger, 
Hallstatt im Wandel der Zeit, 1998.


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