Evidence of the lignite industry in Saxony recorded

In the course of a federally funded project, archaeologists and monument conservators have comprehensively recorded thousands of remnants of the lignite industry in the Lusatian and Central German coalfields. The documentation now provides a comprehensive inventory for Saxony, as announced by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (LfD) in Dresden on Sunday. As a kind of "all-encompassing historical atlas of the cultural heritage of the lignite industry", it provides a "deep insight into an industry that shaped the landscapes affected".

The findings will gradually be published in the online portal Kultur Landschaft Digital, an information system about the historical cultural landscape. Selected objects have already been described in two LfD publications - from the royal lignite works, pits and coal bunkers to the "Onion Woman and Miner" monument.

The two-year interdisciplinary recording project is linked to the structural change in the coal regions. According to the LfD, the almost comprehensive inventory of an entire industrial sector in four federal states - teams are also working in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and North Rhine-Westphalia - is "a first", and the first-time digital provision of information and mapping enables a nationwide comparison. The project illustrates "how formative this branch of industry was for the mining areas and remains so with the large number of structures". Their preservation requires concepts, money and people who identify with the buildings.