One of Europe's largest mining museums, the Krakow Salt Mines Museum has two permanent exhibitions:
- The underground exhibition on level 3 of the historical Wieliczka Salt Mine. In 1978, the mine, located 135 metres underground, was entered on UNESCO's first List of World of Cultural and Natural Heritage, and was proclaimed a Historic Monument by the President of Poland in 1994
- The ground-level exhibition is in the medieval Saltworks Castle, the seat of the mine's management from the late thirteenth century until 1945, which was restored in 1976-1996.
Thanks to the initiative of Professor Alfons Dlugosz, a painter, the Museum opened in 1951 and has since been proudly presenting the centuries-long mining tradition at Wieliczka and Bochnia.Today, the museum is Europe's largest historical salt mining complex, with 19,050 items. Its holdings include specimens of Miocene animal and plant life, relics of Europe's oldest brine equipment dating back to the middle Neolithic period and discovered locally, a unique collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century horse-powered treadmills, and old equipment for horizontal and inclined drift transport. The Museum has also decorative and fine arts pieces, including the Diggers' Fraternity Horn from 1534, miners' ceremonial weapons, oil paintings of subjects related to the Wieliczka salt mine painted by Jan Matejko and others, a collection of prints, a collection of salt cellars, sacred paintings and sculptures from the former mine chapels, underground and surface maps, including the maps of the town and of the three Wieliczka mine levels drawn in 1631-8 by Marcin German, the Swedish land surveyor. The Museum's archives contain original royal documents and unique manuscripts from the fifteenth century to the present times, salt mine records and a collection of photographs.
Permanent exhibitions:
- Salt Mine - Level 3: Geology of Poland's Salt Deposits; Archeology of Salt Mining; History of Krakow Salt Mines; Rock Salt and Evaporated Salt Production Technology; Mining Transport Equipment; Mine Lighting Systems; Commercial Forms of Excavated Sal
- Saltworks Castle (Zamek Zupny): Wieliczka in Pre-Historic and Early Medieval Times; Wieliczka: A History of the Town; Salt Cellars in the Collection of the Krakow Salt Mines Museum.
Muzeum Żup Krakowskich - Wieliczka
ul. Zamkowa 8
32-020 Wieliczka
Region: małopolskie
Phone: (+48 12) 278 32 66, 422 19 47
Fax: (+48 12) 278 30 28
WWW: www.muzeum.wieliczka.pl
Email: podziemne@muzeum.wieliczka.pl