ZINN & SEIN – Exhibition opens new perspectives on 4,000 years of mining and forest history in the Ore Mountains

On 15 November 2025, the new exhibition “Zinn & Sein” (Člověk a cín) was officially opened at the Ehrenfriedersdorf tin mine. The exhibition was developed within the EU Interreg project ArchaeoTin – Archaeology in the World Heritage: Tin Mining Landscapes and explores more than 4,000 years of tin mining history in the Ore Mountains. Among the guests at the opening ceremony were Minister President Michael Kretschmer and State Minister Barbara Klepsch.

The multimedia exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the millennia of tin extraction – from the remarkable Bronze Age beginnings to medieval mining and into the modern era. It highlights not only the technological aspects of tin production but also the social and ecological impacts that have shaped the region across centuries. A special emphasis is placed on the cross-border perspective: Zinn & Sein illustrates how mining connected people and landscapes on both sides of the Ore Mountains.

The Chair of Forest Growth and Woody Biomass Production contributes to the project through anthracological and dendrochronological analyses. By systematically investigating historical charcoal kiln sites, we reconstruct past forest composition and dynamics.

The ArchaeoTin project, coordinated by the Archaeological Heritage Office of Saxony, brings together six partner institutions from the Czech Republic, Bavaria, and Saxony, and is funded by the Interreg Saxony–Czech Republic 2021–2027 Programme of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The exhibition will be on display at the Ehrenfriedersdorf tin mine until 2 March 2026, before travelling to the Czech Ore Mountains, where it can be visited at the Regional Museum Teplice from 2 April to 28 June 2026.

© Interreg