Mining Area of the Great Copper Mountain in Falun - UNESCO ...

3. Description
a. Description of property
General: The property proposed for inscription consists of five areas surrounding
the Great Copper Mountain which together made up Kopparbergslagen, a distinctive
cultural region with a unique man-made landscape. They comprise the thousandyear-old
mine at Falun with facilities both below and above ground, furnace sites
near the mine and waterways, ponds and canals and antiquated miner-yeomen
settlement west of the mine. To this has been added the town of Falun, with its
gridiron street plan from 1646, the timber-built districts of Elsborg, Gamla
Herrgården (“Old Manor House”) and Östanfors, and other listed buildings in the
centre of Falun. There are also four miner-yeomen landscapes of interest: the area
north of Lake Varpan, between Österå and Bergsgården, the area surrounding
Hosjön, the area along the Sundbornsån Valley and the area surrounding the Knivaån
Valley from Staberg towards Marieberg. The landscape is traversed by many old
pack-horse trails and paths. The best-preserved of these, classed as a site of national
interest, is called Linnévägen and was the main riding and carting route northwards
from Falun in olden times.
The core area
A 1. The Great Copper Mountain
The Great Copper Mountain (in swedish "Stora Kopparberget") consists of the mine
together with the immense Stora Stöten open-cast mine which was formed by a
landslip in 1687. This open pit is about 350 x 300 metres wide and about 90 m deep.
The mine has been excavated down to about 400 metres below ground, with
numerous subterranean galleries and faces. Some of the older parts of the mine are
included in the visitors’ mine open to the general public. The visitors’ mine is
between 55 and 65 metres below ground and has a visitors’ trail about 600 metres
long. The attractions include Creutz’ s Shaft, 208 m deep and with a timber partition
wall, “the highest timber structure in the world”. The enormous Allmänna Freden
(“Universal Peace”) workspace contains displays of historic working equipment and
mining methods, and the Julklappen (“Christmas Present”) rock cavern is inscribed
with signatures commemorating royal visits to the mine.
The mining landscape above ground consists of spoil heaps and “Swedish red”
heaps, together with historic buildings round about the mine, dating from the 17th,
18th and 19th centuries. Most of these buildings have, in the customary manner,
been moved about within the area, with the expansion of mining operations. All the
buildings described below are included in the Falun Mine heritage site. Reference
numbers correspond to those used in the heritage site designation (see map, app. 1):
1 Transformer building.
2 Stables.
3 Storage building - a building constructed of cast slag blocks, soon after the Falun
town fires of 1761, when Mine Superintendent Anton von Swab, Markscheider
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