Institut für Stadtgeschichte Recklinghausen

Alongside sculptures, the range of mining-related artworks particularly includes paintings, especially portraits and depictions of mines. A significant portion of these are naïve paintings created by amateur artists, frequently former miners who use this medium to describe their day-to-day work and leisure time.

Miner’s lamps, a collective term used in mining for all lighting equipment used underground. (following: Das kleine Bergbaulexikon, [The small mining glossary], 1998)

Objects in the areas of geology, mineralogy and palaeontology, frequently used to document the structure of various deposits

Extraction, loosening of coal and other deposit content from the hard rock with the aid of the extraction procedure. (following: Das kleine Bergbaulexikon [The small mining glossary], 1998)

Tools used in mining work. In German-speaking countries, the miner's toolset is known as a "Gezähe". (following: Das kleine Bergbaulexikon [The small mining glossary], 1998)

The term for the geodetic survey of the mining claim performed by mining surveyors

Markscheide is the word for the lateral boundary line of a mining claim, and which is determined by a line to the earth’s surface, and which continues as an imaginary plane to the centre-point of the earth. (following: Das kleine Bergbaulexikon [The small mining glossary], 1998)

The purpose of mine ventilation is to allow people and animals in the mine to breathe, and to supply the air needed to fuel the miner's lamp, and to thin and dissipate the stale or toxic air and firedamp that accumulates in the mine, until it has been rendered harmless. (following: Grothe, Lexikon des Bergbaues, [Mining Lexicon] 1962)

As lifelike, scaled-down replicas, models are used to explain the functional methods of technical plant and machinery.

Diorama, a plastic, painted rendering usually assembled within a display case and used as a teaching aid. (following: dtv-Brockhaus-Lexikon, 1986)

Objects with a close connection to mining customs, miners’ associations as well as personal mementos

This is protective clothing designed to withstand the tough working conditions underground.

Uniforms worn by mining officials and miners on festive and formal occasions.

Meaning a miner's personal effects for use underground, and which do not directly serve as work tools. These might be the miner's lunch box or snuff pouch.

Image, film and audio material particularly containing historical images of collieries and audio-visual documentation of underground mining work.

This object group encompasses mining-related map materials, including maps showing colliery sites or graphical representations based on surveys performed above and below ground, known as Grubenrisse [mine layouts].

These are written records (files, books, company brochures etc.), which are found in practically all the recorded collections and museums, alongside the objects kept there.