Banská Štiavnica - mesto svetového dedičstva

Technical Monuments

There are several types of technical monuments within the area of Banská Štiavnica's ore district. First, there are objects which are in immediate connection with the exploitation of  ore - open-surface excavations,  galleries, shafts, mining towers, waste dumps (see the list of technical monuments).

Then, there is an object of the foundry as well as other devices or polyfunctional objects which were utilized in several industries - the system of man-made  water reservoirs used in mining, treating, smelting, etc., and the aqueduct. Besides these, there are also industrial objects in the district - the tobacco factory, the original factory for production of steel ropes, the factory for production of shoes and the building of the original factory for production of linen. Non-production objects include the building of the Head Chamber Earl's Office where written documents and archeological finds prove  the existence of laboratory equipment for technical  testing of mined ore, the buildings of mining surveying, mining hospital, mining school  founded in 1735,  those of the Mining Academy founded in 1761 - 1762, as well as those of mining, metallurgical and forestry schools from the 19th century, watch and signal constructions - mining knocking towers and the like. In order to demonstrate mining activities, an open-air mining musem was built on the site of the original Ondrej Shaft and Bartolomej Gallery with equipment from the larger area.

Out of the 30 most significant and still existing water reservoirs, Veľká Vodárenská is the oldest (built before 1510). Three of them are from the 16th century, two from the 17th, eighteen from the 18th century, which represents the most considerable period of construction of the hydroenergetic mining system water works, two water reservoirs are from the 19th and one from the 20th century.

The highest located water reservoir is Ottergrund at 801.2 metres above sea level. The longest dams are those of Richňavské water reservoirs with a total 774.7 metres, Veľká Vindšachtská 237.1 metres, Dolná Hodrušská and Počúvadlo each more than 195 metres. The widest  dam top is that of Veľká Richňavská with 24.7 metres. The main dam of Počúvadlo water reservoir, which in fact has 5 dams, is the highest with 29.6 metres. The deepest water reservoir is Rozgrund from the 18th century with a maximum depth of 22.3 metres. Its dam thanks to the slope on the outer side represented a technical rarity - the most daring construction in the world until the middle of the 19th century. By volume of water mass, the largest water reservoirs are Rozgrund and Veľká Richňavská with 960,000 m3 and Počúvadlo with 745,000 m3.

Unique are also the systems of collecting and draining canals, the system of mutual connections,  galleries and devices. Richňavské water resrvoirs have the longest canal system of   24,000 metres and 1,714 metres of water galleries. The collecting canals on the slope of Sitno are 16 km long and they supply one of the largest water reservoirs - Počúvadlo, with the area of 12.13 ha. 

The total volume of the water reservoirs built from the 16th to the 19th century was about 7 million cubic metres, the collecting canals were 72 km long and the race canals 57 km. 40 reservoirs served for the needs of mining operation, the rest of them were used to drive other than mining devices, to supply drinking water and for fishing. This historic water collecting system  in the hilly environment made a complete use of practically the total hydroenergetic potential of the watershed of two rivers, the Hron and Ipeľ, and represented a unified and complete water management system.

The mining industry in Banská Štiavnica is most historically important because of its system for draining mines. Draining galleries were of great importance in the rich ore district because they brought mine water to the surface using gravity. A unique rarity was the draining gallery of Emperor Joseph II, today known as Voznická Gallery, which was built in 1782 - 1878 and at the time of its completion it was the world longest underground work being 16,538.5 metres long. When it was driven in 1873, a compressed air drilling machine was used for the first time in the Hungarian Empire and electric blasting of explosives was tested for the first time as well. This draining gallery continues to drain water into the Hron River even today. 

In 1825 - 1828 one of the first railways in the Hungarian Empire was built in  Holy Trinity Draining Gallery for transport of mine waggons pulled by horses. In 1841 - 1844 the first water column machine with rotary motion was constructed in the Ondrej Shaft. In 1837 the world first factory for production of machine made steel ropes was founded in Štiavnické Bane. One of its buildings still exists in Banská Štiavnica. Originally it was a central ore-treatment device, so called Šandorka, which was moved there in 1909. Significant objects that have connections with ore exploitation are represented by large open-surface excavations  on  Špitaler vein - Banská Štiavnica, on Hlavná vein - Kopanice and on Terézia vein - Banská Štiavnica.

Another interesting site is an underground stone pit in Kysihýbel for the exploitation of grey and pink andesite which was quarried there as early as the 14th century. The oldest gallery is   Bieber Draining Gallery which started to be driven not later than  the 14th century. The oldest shafts, Weiden - Banská Štiavnica and Terézia - Banská Štiavnica, are mentioned for the first time in 1519 and 1571, respectively.

There is still preserved a machine room  with an electric hauling machine from 1908 and the shaft building with a hauling tower in Hodruša above the Mayer Shaft, which started to be dug in 1805. In Štiavnické Bane above the Jozef Shaft, the only existing on the European continent engine room building of atmospheric steam pumping engines from the first half of the 18th century is preserved.

In Banská Štiavnica there is a smeltery of silver and lead from the first half of the 17th century which was modernized into the central smelting works of the Hungarian Empire in 1872.

A building for the storage of gunpowder - gunpowder magazine - in Banská Štiavnica is from the middle of the 18th century. On the premises of the Ondrej Shaft, from the end of the 17th century, and Bartolomej Gallery, the Open-Air Mining Museum was built. There is displayed also the water column hauling machine from the Lill Shaft in Hodruša, which was constructed in 1881 and was driven by water pressure. This is the last existing device constructed on Hell's principle of water column pumping devices from the middle of the 18th century. Another precious item of the museum is the hauling machine from the Mária Shaft in Banská Štiavnica, which was the first hauling and pumping machine in the ore district of Banská Štiavnica driven by Watt's steam engine. Besides, there is a lot of other historically significant technical devices  shown in the Open-Air Mining Museum.