Memory of a miner from the Saarland region
The Saar coal basin is part of the Sarre-Lorraine deposit which extends in the direction of Neunkirchen and in the southwest to Lorraine. Extracted at the beginning from the hillsides, later on through the use of vertical shafts, the production accelerated in the second half of the 19th century, until the final closure of the Bergwerk Saar on June 30, 1912. This block of ‘diamond-shaped anthracite contains 93 to 97% carbon and, besides its use as a fuel, it also functioned as an electrode for electric motors. The engraving indicates the retirement of a miner (the crossed peaks) on September 26, 1951. This object is a rare testimony to a man’s life whose working conditions were terrible.