11 Oct – Cultures of Sculptures

From Norway

Sunday morning tried to start way too early. I woke up at 4:30am due to a conversation by ladies in the hotel room next door. They were still going at it when I left the room at 8am for breakfast. It was a museum-weather day (dreary and wet), however the museums do not open on Sundays until 11am. The rain hasn’t melted me yet, so I set off for Vigeland/Frogner Parken.

This park is known for its sculptures of life or should I say life-sized sculptures. Both apply here. Frogner was a man whom dedicated much of his life to making these stone carvings resemble the many experiences an individual experiences throughout a lifetime. The statues are life-size of mothers, fathers, babies, toddlers, adolences, young adults, and up to grandparents. The sculptures show emotions… a toddler throwing a fit, a yound maiden frolicking, a mother doing the daughters hair for an event, etc. At the park peak there is a stone monolith with 100s of bodies carved out in different postures. It’s so life-like you expect one of bodies to start writhing. Fortunately, it does not. Anyways, well done Mr. Frogner.

The return walk involved a stop at the National Museum of Art (it was now 11) and I was able to browse the Edward Munch room (including the famous painting “The Scream”). He is the most famous artist from Norway. His paintings are quite creepy as he seemed to be a dark fellow despite being recognized at the young age of 22. In East Oslo there is a Munch museum that is home to 100s of his paintings. He dedicated all of them to the museum upon his death in the 1950s. There are so many paintings that they rotate them every couple months. My 24 hours were drawing to a close and grabbed the uneventful noon-time train to Kongsberg.

The next visit was to sculptures that took 1000s of artists and 100s of years to create… the Kongsberg Silver Mines. The tour was eye-opening… not only because it was so dark in there you had to open them wide, but the facts surrounding the silver excavation. The silver was discovered by a couple farmers on their land in 1623. They melted it to shape and tried selling it in the nearby towns. They were not very successful, however the word traveled. Soon the FBI equivalent demanded that these farmers release the silver’s source. At the time, Norway was ruled by the King of Denmark (Christian IV) so he dropped by the little silver hill with his entourage. The King put is marking on a rock, determined the silver is to be mined, and pointed out (from the hill) of where the town should be located. He was after as much money as possible to fund the 30yr or 100yr war, and silver was the currency of the day. Money grew in rock.

The King hired Germans miners and engineers to mine the silver as they had experience and Norwegians did not. Kongsberg town was not only almost all Germans, it was also the largest city in Norway at the time. The capital was Bergen (on the west coast). Here’s some other facts great facts:

- Kongsberg mining peaked in the 1770s
- 2.2 lbs of silver was worth 1 man’s salary at that time (today the same amount is $625)
- Per 1 day of mining, the tunnel was 0.5 – 1.2” deeper
- The total mining tunnels are 420 – 600 miles long
- 3,300,000 lbs of silver was mined from Kongsberg
- 16,500,000,000 lbs of rock was mined
- The mines were operational through 1958 (334 yrs!)
- The mint in town is still printing and coining the money for the country

Yes, there are still silver in the mountains. They closed the mines because the silver price dropped so much that it wasn’t worth it. Now our money is based on oil, so what was happening in Kongsberg in 1770 is more or less the equivalent to what we’re doing on the oil dredging platforms today.

As a tour participant, I boarded the train’s mini-containers and shut the caged metal door. The train took us almost a mile down the track in the mountain. When we exited the train, there was 1,000 ft of rock & earth above our yellow hard hats. Yes, it was somewhat unnerving to digest. The deepest shaft is 3,000 ft deep (length of three Eiffel towers), though some of it is now water logged because it’s below the water table. The English guide took us around to various shafts for an hour before we returned to the trains. It was great learning of the engineering feats, how to know where to chip away, and the work life from such an unusual job. It is quite a big history for such a little town.

Back at the hotel after a quick unpacking session, all the flea market purchases got scrubbed clean. Ready for use or ready for packing. A Norwegian sculpture… I mean culture weekend… check!