Bergbaumuseum Steinhaus

Bergbaumuseum im Kornkasten - Museo delle Miniere nel Granaio


Useful Information

Location: In Steinhaus, Ahrntal (valley of the Ahrn river).
Brenner Highway, exit Brixen/Bressanone, follow E66 Puster valley road to Bruneck. Turn left on SS621 into Ahrntal, in Sand in Taufers follow signs to Luttach Ahrntal. Steinhaus is almost at the end of the valley.
(46.995001, 11.980758)
Open: Mid-APR to OCT Tue-Sun, Hol 10-17, last entry 16.
[2022]
Fee: Permanent exhibition: Adults EUR 4, Children (0-16) EUR 2.50, Students (17-27) EUR 2.50, Seniors (65+) EUR 3, Family (2+*) EUR 8.
Adventure Gallery, Combined tickets with Museum Steinhaus: Adults EUR 12, Children (0-16) EUR 5, Students (17-27) EUR 5, Seniors (65+) EUR 8, Family (2+*) EUR 24.
Combined ticket permanent exhibition & guided village tour: Adults EUR 6, Children (0-16) EUR 3, Students (17-27) EUR 3, Seniors (65+) EUR 4, Family (2+*) EUR 12.
[2022]
Classification: SubterraneaMining Museum
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours: self guided
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: yes
Bibliography:
Address: Landesmuseum Bergbau Standort Steinhaus, Steinhaus Klausbergstraße 103, I-39030 Ahrntal, Tel +39-0474-651043.
E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

15th century Steinhaus becomes administrative seat of the Prettau copper mine.
1700 grain store constructed.
1893 building unused for many years after the closure of the mine.
1989 purchased by the municipality of Ahrntal and renovated.
OCT-2000 museum opened to the public.

Description

Steinhaus (Cadipietra, Stone House) is the name of the village, the building after which the village was named is called Kornkasten (Grain Store). As the name says, a Steinhaus is a huge house which was erected with stones. The houses in the poor valleys of the Alps were often built with a stone wall at the ground floor and the upper floors, the roof and the stable were built of wood. The reason is simple: wood was available in abundance and much easier to handle, the quarrying of stones was hard work with insufficient tools. Only rich people built their houses completely of stone. And this huge house was erected by the mine as an administrative centre for mining in the whole Ahrntal (Ahrn Valley). It was named Kornkasten (gain store) because it was obviously used to store grains, corn for the miners. The huge building was also used to store all the goods needed for mining operations. The raw materials for tools and lamps were called Pfennwerte. The massive building was so dominating, the daily life of all locals depended so much on the mining, the village was soon named Steinhaus.

The original museum about mining was located in Sterzing (Vipiteno) at the Italian end of the Brenner Motorway. This museum was never very popular, but it was the first attempt to preserve the mining heritage. When the mines in Südtirol (South Tyrolia) where transformed into show mines in the 1980s, there was a museum founded to manage them all. This organisation named Südtiroler Bergbaumuseum transformed the mines at Prettau, Ridnaun and Schneeberg into show mines, and also the ore processing at Maiern and this building at Steinhaus into mining museums. All sites together are the museum, and although the museum was reorganized and is now called the Landesmuseum Bergbau Südtirol, it still consists of the four locations. As they are on different locations we had to split the museum on different pages. The collections of the Sterzing museum were added to the pool of the new museum and are now on display at the place where they came from originally.