Flood Dams, Klavže

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Klavže

Prelovčeva 9, SI-5280 Idrija

http://www.muzej-idrija-cerkno.si

tajnistvo@muzej-idrija-cerkno.si

Phone386 (0) 5 372 6600

Managed byIdrija Municipal Museum

Five hundred years of mining in the Idrija Mercury Mine required vast quantities of timber for the mine's architecture, supporting pillars, machines, smelting ore, as well as supplying the inhabitants of Idrija.

Thus forestry became of substantial importance. The town of Idrija lies in a hilly region surrounded by vast forests. Nearby reachable forests had been cut early, or were on very steep terrain, so the most practical way was to transport timber on waterways from forests far away. Dams were made on the rivers Zala, Belca, Idrijca, and Kanomljica for timber transport all the way to the town of Idrija. Klavže ("flood dams") were made to dam lakes, timber was piled in the lake, which was later released as the water drove the timber downstream to Idrija on river rakes, where the timber was caught and retrieved from the water for further use. Because of their huge stone structures klavže are called also - the Slovene pyramids. Some of them were restored and are well worth a visit.

History

The first klavže were built out of wood in the 16th century on the Zala river, but were too dependent on rainfall and high waters. Around 1770 the monumental klavže were built out of brick, stone and mortar, mechanisms that required only a pair of oxen to lift or close the dam barriers, also in extreme weather conditions. The biggest klavže were those of a local Master Mrak's (1709–1786), positioned where the river Idrijca formed an 800-metre-long lake that could drive some 10,000 m3 of timber at a time downstream to Idrija 20km away.

It has been calculated that the river Idrijca carried approximately 4,540,000 m3 of fuel wood and 375,000 m3 of pit wood and round timber. The transportation of timber via rivers ended in 1926, after catastrophic floods took away the rakes in Lenštat in the centre of Idrija. Being a klavžar ("dam operator") was a very responsible, but also highly valued, position among the people.

Visit

Klavže attracted the audience already at the time when they performed their duty. The opening of a dam and the noisy transportation of timber was an attractive performance of human engineering ingenuity. The models of klavže and Lenštat rakes made by Janko Trošt explain well the whole process and can be seen in the Idrija Municipal Museum. The visit to one of the preserved sites remains, however, a unique experience.

For a few decades the abandoned klavže were decaying and became hardly accessible due to the lack of road maintenance. In 1968 the Municipality of Idrija proclaimed them as a first class technical monument and from 2001 onwards the following klavže have been protected as a cultural monument on a state level: Belčne klavže (Idrijska Bela), Putrihove klavže (Idrijska Bela) - built from 1767 till 1769 according to the plans by Jožef Mrak, Idrijske klavže (Vojsko), and the most monumental Kanomeljske klavže (Gorenja Kanomlja, called also Ovčjak klavže), built in 1813.

See also

• Mercury mining heritage on Culture.si
• Idrija Municipal Museum
• Idrija Mine Museum
• Miner's House - Ethnological Collection
• Idrija Kamšt
• Cerkno Museum

External links

• A richly illustrated book on Jožef Mrak (1709–1786) by Janez Kavčič (in Slovenian)
• Klavže - Slovenian Pyramids on the Idrija Tourism website
• Idrija Municipal Museum
• Mercury Mine Idrija