The cultural heritage kit of Poland features a wagon and rock salt, symbolizing Poland’s rich mining tradition that provided jobs and prosperity for centuries. Salt was discovered in Bochnia and Wieliczka in the 13th century, leading to a royal monopoly on salt extraction. Today, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, a UNESCO World Heritage site, serves as a museum, preserving the history and stories of the miners.

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CULTURAL
HERITAGE
KIT OF
POLAND

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▪ The souvenir from Poland
which we chose as a
reminder for our Cultural
Heritage Kit, represents
more than meets the eye.
The wagon and the rock salt
stand for the hundreds of
years of Poland’s mining
tradition, which was one of
the most important industries
that produced jobs for so
many miners and their
families, as well as made the
country rich and prosperous.

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▪ Rock salt was discovered in
Bochnia and Wieliczka in the
second half of the 13th century.
Polish princes and kings
realized the strategic
significance of salt extraction
and trading, and quickly
established their monopoly over
the Saltworks in the early Middle
Ages.

4. z▪ It was in the 16th
century that horses
started to help people in
the mines. They started
living inside the mines,
some of them never
going back to the
surface.
▪ The salt mines were
one of the largest
enterprises in Europe,
with several thousand
miners extracting about
30,000 tons of salt per
year.

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▪ Today many of these
mines are not in
function. The most
important one of them,
the Wieliczka Salt
Mine which is on the
UNESCO’s World
Heritage List, is open
as a museum. It tells
the story of the long
history, hard work and
incredible lives of
miners whose traces
can still be seen
around the halls of this
amazing mine.