Photo: museums and exhibitions, German Museum of Salt, Lower Saxony

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German Museum of Salt – history of the “white gold”

Museums and Exhibitions

Salt extraction in Lüneburg began more than a thousand years ago. By the end of the 16th century the town became the largest salt supplier in the North Europe. After the mine was closed in 1980, a museum of salt was opened in the building of saltworks.

Some halls are dedicated to the history of extraction of “white gold” in the Medieval Ages, in the 19th and 20th century. Here you can learn how the amount of consumed salt changed. Thus, earlier a person would consume up to 10 kg of salt per year, while now this amounts to only 6 kg. Here you will also learn that salt can be rock, table, sea, iodized, technical, etc.

In summer, museum employees, having arrayed themselves in old costumes, demonstrate how salt is evaporated from a solution on huge cast iron pans that are heated on bonfires.

The museum will also remind you that starting from the 15th century a Master of Salt, or Sülfmeister, was annually selected in the town. He controlled the extraction and evaporation of the valuable product. To honour this tradition, each summer a festival is conducted in Lüneburg with funny competitions and selection of a symbolic Master. Several teams compete in rolling a huge barrel full of stones through the town streets to the destination, where a bonfire is lighted. The festival is accompanied with a fair, performances of jugglers and a parade.

German Museum of Salt – history of the “white gold”

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