Exhibition research display object 16: Saint Barbara

The history of mining is steeped in religiosity. In every mine in Germany and Hungary that we visited as a curatorial team, we encountered the figure of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners, who is said to hold her protective hand over miners regardless of their denomination—whether Catholic or Protestant. The traditional miners' uniform has a total of 29 buttons, reflecting the years of life of St. Barbara, who was beheaded by her father at the age of 29 because she had converted to the Christian faith. Religiosity is also reflected in the fact that the top three buttons on the collar of a miner’s uniform are not fastened as a reminder of the Trinity.

We also encountered St. Barbara at the Frisch Glück “Glöckl” education and exhibition mine in Johanngeorgenstadt, Saxony. Her statuette was gifted to this Protestant community by their Catholic sister municipality in Rhineland. The history of Johanngeorgenstadt, located directly on the German-Czech border, is inextricably linked to the region’s mining history. It was founded in 1654 as a direct result of the Counter-Reformation, during which numerous Bohemian exiles settled in neighboring Saxony. In the area around Johanngeorgenstadt, as elsewhere in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge), the first generation of mining focused on silver ore. The prosperity of the region was long linked to this, but interestingly, when silver prices in the early 19th century fell, uranium ore became, for some time, the main income source for the “Glöckl” mine. Uranium ore was also mined here during the Second World War. After the war, Johanngeorgenstadt was completely demolished above ground and rebuilt as a planned town, while underground up to 42,000 people mined uranium ore under Soviet management, until the mines ceased operations in 1958.