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

“While visiting the town of Falun I descended 70 fathoms into the great Swedish
copper mine so widely famed even in China.”
The numerous Swedish and international visitors included the French Ambassador
Charles d’Ogier in 1635, the English mineralogist J.F. Leopold in 1708, the Swedish
natural scientist Carl von Linné in 1734, the German theologian Dr Christoffer
Wilhelm Lüdeke in 1783, the Finnish State Herald, J.K. Linnerhielm, in 1787 and
1807, the Pomeranian author Ernst Moritz Arndt in 1804, the Danish authors H.C.
Andersen and P.F. Barfood in 1849 and 1863 respectively, and the American
explorer Paul B. du Chaillu in 1871. All of them were impressed by the enormous
dimensions of the copper mine and terrified by its bottomless depths, the appalling
smoke from the roasting houses and all the remarkable structures and devices of the
mining operation. The Great Copper Mountain became Sweden’s first and biggest
tourist attraction. The first recorded use of the word “tourist” in Swedish occurs in a
drawing of the mine made in 1824.
The impressions made by the mining town can be illustrated in the words of H.C.
Andersen:
“Emerging at last from the forest we saw ahead of us a town wreathed in thick
smoke, rather like the English factory towns are: but here the smoke was greenish;
this was the town of Falun. The road descended between a kind of large hills, formed
of the slag discarded from the blast furnaces, which resembled burnt-out, solidified
lava; no vegetation was to be seen, not a blade of grass protruded by the roadside,
not a bird flew past; a strong smell of sulphur, like that from the crater of Solfatara,
filled the air. The copper roof of the church was bright green with verdigris; long,
straight streets opened out, silent as the grave (…) We went out to the copper mine,
for which the whole area derives its name of ‘the Great Copper Mountain’ (…) From
the blast furnaces the fire shone in green, yellow and red tongues beneath a bluishgreen
smoke; half-naked, grimy men were turning great glowing masses of fire, so
that the sparks flew round about. (…) Surrounded by smoke and permeated by
smoke, buildings stand side by side, though curiously jumbled about (…) Great
wheels were turning, long ropes and iron chains were in perpetual motion. And we
stood in front of a great abyss, called ‘Stora Stöten’; once this was divided into three
parts, but one fine day they all collapsed into one; so now this enormous declivity
resembles a single great valley…”
The Great Copper Mountain was a leading centre of technical progress in earlier
times. Internationally eminent engineers working at the mine included, for example,
the German Christoffer Klem in the 16th century, Christopher Polhem, the Father of
Swedish Mechanical Engineering, in about 1700, the Markscheider Eric Geisler and
the Mineralogist Johan Gottlieb Gahn in the 18th century, the chemist Jöns Jacob
Berzelius and the engineer Gustaf de Laval, inventor of the separator, in the 19th
century.
Apart from copper, a host of other minerals and bi-products have come out of the
Great Copper Mountain. Sulphur, zinc, lead, silver and gold became increasingly
important during the 19th and 20th centuries, as demand for copper receded. A silver
furnace from 1844 is still extant, perfectly intact. The Great Copper Mountain
supplies such classical Swedish products as Falun (Swedish) red paint - a unique red
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