{"id":5799,"date":"2023-01-29T20:45:28","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T19:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/?p=5799"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:18:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T12:18:29","slug":"working-with-prehistoric-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/working-with-prehistoric-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"Working with prehistoric rock"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_custom_heading text=”Brick firing as in the Middle Ages in the B\u00e4rnau-Tachov History Park” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”%7B%22default%22%3A%7B%22font-weight%22%3A%22700%22%7D%7D”]

They manually break each stone out of the granite and each beam out of a raw tree trunk; they make mortar from limestone, bricks from clay. \u201cAll by hand, just like in the old days,\u201d comments stonemason Robert Mois. We observe the two craftsmen at their workplace, the B\u00e4rnau-Tachov History Park, as they build a historical settlement using medieval techniques.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

\u201cWe’ve got plenty of work left to do on this prehistoric rock before the whole complex is ready,\u201d explains Michael Winkler, smiling at his four colleagues. This team of craftsmen is as diverse as the history park itself: They hail from Bohemia and Bavaria and bring many years of experience to this project, a collaboration between the University of Bamberg, the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, and the Charles University in Prague. \u201cExperimental archeology,\u201d the researchers call it. \u201cIt’s all true to detail, just like it was back then,\u201d comments Winkler on the natural construction materials, the handcrafted tools and the rediscovered processing techniques.<\/p>\n

Brick firing, for instance. As if from a dragon\u2019s throat, a red-hot gush hisses out of the furnace when carpenter Armin pulls the chain on its iron door taut. The inside of the furnace must reach at least 680 degrees Celsius \u2013 and stay at that temperature \u2013 to ensure that the bricks are weatherproof and frost-resistant. For the team at the medieval building site, this means three days and three nights of fire watch. \u201cWe add wood every half hour and make sure that the temperature never drops.\u201d Otherwise, all their hard work would have been in vain.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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They have even designed and built the furnace themselves. This in-house approach is very important to Robert Mois. His dialect reveals his Upper Palatine roots as he tells us about the furnace. Yesterday morning, at eight o\u2019clock, they fired it up. The bricks had already been shaped days before and artfully built around the fireplace with impressive precision. The kiln is fed wood and wood alone. Spruce from the Upper Palatinate and Bohemian forests burn especially fast and well, the three assure me. It’s the perfect material for the logs, which have been stacked up all around the kiln and are almost one meter long. \u201cSome of these woodpiles are over two meters tall and at least as wide, but they burst into flames in a matter of seconds. The lime-burning process takes even more wood,\u201d explains Mois. When burning lime, the three men heat their historical kiln to more than 1,200 degrees Celsius, using a sophisticated system of air ducts. Three days and three nights pass. Time seems to stand still in this corner of northern Upper Palatinate: The Waldnaab river gently snakes through its idyllic landscape of medieval farms and fortifications just as it has done for centuries. Once upon a time, merchant caravans and emperors\u2019 entourages crossed this river on the famous Via Carolina, the Golden Road, which led from Nuremberg to Pilsen and onwards to Prague. It was one of the most important east-to-west trade routes of the Middle Ages. In B\u00e4rnau, monarchs and merchants stopped to rest. Seeking to reconstruct such an imperial rest station, researchers have searched for plans, rummaged through archives and sifted through documents.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

The craftsmen and their visitors agree: The most fascinating thing about this everlasting construction site is not the prospect of its completion, it’s the constant progress made using techniques that, strictly speaking, no longer exist. Every completed step attracts curious visitors to this unique site, with some dropping in again and again. For the servants\u2019 quarters alone, the five historical builders sawed and drove 600 meters of roof battens by hand from unprocessed tree trunks.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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\u201cWe\u2019ll need the 300 or so bricks made during the current burning process for the chimney of the half-timbered house,\u201d explains carpenter Armin. This firing technique always produces some wastage, but the three use it to lay the floor. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what they used to do back in the day \u2013 nothing ever got thrown away,\u201d assures Robert Mois. Considering all the time invested in making these materials, even broken pieces are much too valuable to throw away. Crumbled bricks were often ground into brick dust and mixed into the lime mortar, which allows the substance to solidify in wet environments and makes it suitable for wells, spas and port areas.<\/p>\n

These old techniques were rarely documented in writing. A builder\u2019s knowledge was an important asset, fiercely protected and only passed on to one’s successor \u2013 orally, of course. As a result, the team of three in the valley between the Upper Palatinate town of B\u00e4rnau and the Bohemian town of Tachov have to experiment a lot whenever they want to create something new. And there is much more to the \u201cliving history\u201d celebrated in places like this than medieval feasts with amateur actors draped in old robes. Of course, there\u2019s plenty of fun to be had here, too. But living history starts at the building sites of the ever-changing complex, and the three builders are more than happy to give others insights into their craft. They have already built more than 30 buildings based on old models. And at least on this building site, nobody wants to be done.<\/p>\n

A year ago, we have already visited the craftsmen. Click here<\/a> for the article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They drive each beam by hand from a raw log, burn bricks from clay and are happy to let you look over their shoulder: The craftsmen from the B\u00e4rnau-Tachov History Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-5799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work","tag-read"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWorking with prehistoric rock - HEROES WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/working-with-prehistoric-rock\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Working with prehistoric rock\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"They drive each beam by hand from a raw log, burn bricks from clay and are happy to let you look over their shoulder: The craftsmen from the B\u00e4rnau-Tachov History Park.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/working-with-prehistoric-rock\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"HEROES WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-29T19:45:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/BY22-10_Baernau_\u00a9HannoMeier-5743.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Inge Fuchs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Inge Fuchs\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/working-with-prehistoric-rock\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/01\/29\/working-with-prehistoric-rock\/\",\"name\":\"Working with prehistoric rock - 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