The miners' houses of Eisenerz at the the foot of Vordernberg, Styria, Austria, contrast a lot to agricultural sourroundings.

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Eisenerz ("Iron ore") is a market place and old mining town in Styria, Austria, 68 mi (109 km). of Graz by rail. Pop. (2001) 6,400. It is situated in the deep Erzbach Valley, dominated on the east by the Pfaffenstein (6140 ft), on the west by the Kaiserschild (6830 ft), and on the south by the Erzberg (5030 ft). It has an interesting example of a medieval fortified church, a Gothic edifice founded by Rudolph of Habsburg in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 16th. At the turn of the past century the Erzberg (Ore Mountain) furnished such rich ore that it was quarried in the open air like stone, in the summer months. There is documentary evidence of the mines having been worked as far back as the 12th century. They afforded employment to two or three thousand hands in summer and about half as many in winter, and yielded some 800,000 tons of iron per annum.

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Photo credit: © Manfred Glueck / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: austria, eisdenerz, eisenerz, foot, houses, miners, styria, typical, vordernberg