!!!Salz
Salt, sodium chloride, table salt and halite produced in the form of
rock salt or brine salt. The "eastern-Alpine salt deposit"
is located in a roughly 350 km long and up to 35 km wide
zone between Hall in Tirol and Heiligenkreuz in the Northern
Limestone Alps; salt deposits are found in Mariazell, Admont,
Altaussee, Bad Ischl, Hallstatt, Hallein, Berchtesgaden and Hall in
Tirol. The salt-bearing rock is called Haselgebirge Rock (salt
content 10 %-70 %). Rich prehistoric finds, like graves and
evidence of underground mining activities ( Heidengebirge) in
Hallstatt and Hallein suggest that salt was already being mined in
the New Stone Age. Underground extraction of rock salt took place in
Hallstatt from 1100 B.C. and on Duerrnberg bei Hallein from
600 B.C. to the beginning of the Roman era. In the Heidengebirge
mountains traces of prehistoric mining (pine chips, pickaxe shafts,
bags, food leftovers, excrements, traces of pickaxe work) and bodies
of miners which were preserved by salt ("Mann im Salz",
Duerrnberg bei Hallein 1573 and 1616, Hallstatt 1734) have been found.
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The earliest documented mention of salt production near Bad Hall dates
back to 777. From the 12%%sup th/% century onwards the most
common form of production was the underground extraction of brine and
the boiling of brine as opposed to mining production in prehistoric
times. The mines and saltworks were owned by Princes, Hallein was
owned by the Prince- Archbishopric of Salzburg until the beginning of
the 19%%sup th/% century, and the mine there competed with the
salt mines and saltworks owned by the Habsburgs.
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At the beginning of the 16%%sup th/% century salt production was
monopolised by the Princes of Upper Austria and Salzburg. Because
there was not enough wood in the area around Hallstatt and because the
market was extended to Bohemia, saltworks were built in Bad Ischl
(1572) and Ebensee (1607) and a new brine pipeline from Hallstatt via
Bad Ischl to Ebensee (1595/1607) was established.
\\
The extraction of salt by leaching from the Haselgebirge Rock started
with scooping operations and from the 16%%sup th/% century
onwards salt dissolving chambers (with standing or horizontal outlet)
were increasingly used.
\\
The essential difference between salt production in Austria and the
rest of Europe until the 19%%sup th/% century was that in
Austria people had direct access to the salt-containing rock in the
alpine salt mines which were opened up by tunnels and that the
production of brine and salt was concentrated in the hands of a
"Werksherr" (works master) early on.
\\
In 1850 these mine operations were deprived of their authoritative
status and salt mining companies became business entities of the
monarchy, called "k. k. alpenlaendische Salinen" until
the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The increasing
consumption of brine by the chemical industry and the saltworks in
Ebensee resulted in the construction of a brine pipeline from
Altaussee to Bad Ischl, which was continued to Ebensee in 1906. From
the 20%%sup th/% century onwards the multiple-effect vacuum
evaporation process was used for salt production. During the last
years of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy the "k. k.
alpenlaendische Salinen" produced 170,000 t of salt, which
amounts to about 50 % of the salt production in the Austrian area
of the monarchy.
\\
After the end of the monarchy in 1918 production decreased by more
than 50 %. In 1926 the Oesterreichische Salinen became a
state-owned business. In the course of the modernisations after 1945
the thermocompression method (heat pumps), which had been developed in
Switzerland and in Germany, was adopted (Hall in Tirol 1951, Ebensee
1952, Hallein 1955) in Austria. The bore hole brine production method
has been used since the 1960s. Since 1965 brine production and salt
extraction have been concentrated in the salt mines of Altaussee, Bad
Ischl, Hallstatt and the saltworks of Ebensee (reconstructed in 1979)
because the saltworks of Bad Ischl and Hallstatt were shut down in
1965, the salt mine and saltworks of Hall in Tirol in 1967, the
saltworks of Bad Aussee in 1983 and the salt mine and saltworks of
Hallein in 1989.
\\
Except for the period between 1938 and 1945, Austria had a salt
monopoly. Pursuant to the Salt Monopoly Law of 1978 the state-owned
business of the Oesterreichische Salinen became an Aktiengesellschaft
(AG), although the salt monopoly was maintained. When Austria became a
member of the European Union in 1995, the salt monopoly became
obsolete (1995). The Oesterreichische Salinen AG, as management and
financing holding company, which had been owned by the Republic of
Austria, was privatised in 1997. The most important products of the
Oesterreichische Salinen AG are brine for the chemical industry and
for health purposes, table salt, cattle salt, commercial and
industrial salt, road salt, chemically pure salt for the
pharmaceutical industry, special table salts, tablet salt and licking
stones. The salt mines in Altaussee and Hallstatt produced
2.3 million m%%sup 3/% of brine per year (1998), the salt
mine in Ebensee produced 500,000 t of salt.
\\
Show-mines: Bad Ischl, Hallstatt, Altaussee, Hallein, Hall in Tirol.
!Literature
J. Aigner, Der praehistorische Salz-Berg von Hallstatt,
1902; K. Kromer, Hallstatt, exhibition catalogue, Hallstatt 1963;
idem, Vom fruehen Eisen und reichen Salz-Herren, 1964; G. Treffer,
Weisses Gold - 3000 Jahre Salz in Oesterreich, 1981; R. Palme,
Rechts-, Wirtschafts- und Sozial-Geschichte der inneralpinen
Salz-Werke bis zu deren Monopolisierung, 1983; O. Schauberger, Bau-
und Bildung der Salz-Lagerstaetten des ostalpinen Salinars, 1986; G.
Hattinger, Die Sole- und Salz-Produktion in Oesterreich, 1988; W.
Rausch (ed.), Stadt und Salz, 1988; Salz, exhibition catalogue,
Hallein 1994; A. Komarek, Oesterreich mit einer Prise Salz, 1998.
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