Mines of Rammelsberg

The Rammelsberg is a mountain, 635 metres high, on the northern edge of the Harz range, south of the historic town of Goslar in the North German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important silver, copper, and lead mine, the only mine which had been working continuously for over 1,000 years when it finally closed in 1988. Since 1992, the visitor mine of Rammelsberg has become a UNESCO World heritage site.
According to legend, the mountain was named after a knight called "Ramm", who was a henchman of Emperor Otto the Great. In 968, whilst out hunting, the knight tied his horse to a tree, in order to pursue some deer through almost impassable terrain. His charger impatiently pawed the ground with its hooves whilst waiting for his master to return and so exposed a vein of silver ore. According to another explanation, the name may be derived from the widespread ramsons found on the slopes. It is most probably however, that "ram" is a very old word-explanation for "ore with copper". In Italian today "rame" means "copper".

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