Kutna Hora was quite
literally built on silver, the hill on which the old town stands is
riddled with mine shafts and galleries, where men toiled to in the
darkness to dig out by hand the precious silver ore. You can read
about how hard their work was and think you understand, but it takes
a visit to the mines to really bring it home to you. By the time you
finish you will understand why their life expectancy was 35.
You are kitted out in a
white coat (similar to those worn by the miners), lamp and protective
helmet (which the miners did not have) and then you walk a few
hundred metres uphill to where you enter the shaft. The first part
of your visit consists of climbing down several flights of stairs to
the first level of the mine. The miners would have had to climb or
slide down thin ladders. It is a long way down to the first level,
there are four more below you.
A medieval miner was a
lot shorter than a modern man – only 1.5 metres high – and so you
are warned to watch your head as you walk along. You soon are
grateful for your helmet. You are also grateful for your lamp. At one
point the guide asks you to switch off your lamps and you are plunged
into darkness, s/he then lights a torch and placing her hand over the
light tells you that that is the total amount of light available to
our medieval forebears. For that reason touch and feel were used to
identify the ore deposits. Once a vein was found it was followed into
the rock, some of the tunnels being so low that even a medieval man
would have to crawl.
Having hacked the
silver from the rock it was then carried or dragged back to where it
was raised to the surface (via the horse-powered winch you saw in the
museum or by a man-powered one). Human beings had no such luxury, the
only way back to the surface was a long climb in the dark.
Fortunately for wimpy modern visitors the exit to the mine is via a
door lower down the hillside.
This is not a tour for
people with claustrophobia (the mine-shaft gets so narrow at points
that I feared I would get wedged like Winnie The Pooh in Rabbit’s
hole) nor is it for people with mobility, heart or
breathing problems. But if you can, it is well worth doing - an extraordinary
experience.
