View onto Germany

An Expedition to the World of Minerals

By Gerhard Heide

From metallic grey via flaming red to brilliant blue, honey yellow and grass green, the exhibits glow in every shade at the world’s largest private exhibition of minerals, the terra mineralia.

The beautifully restored castle at Freiberg, Schloss Freudenstein, is not only home to the Saxony State Archives/Mining Archives but since 2008, to the exhibition terra mineralia as well. Foto: TU Bergakademie Freiberg / Detlef Müller

On 14 June 1791, Alexander von Humboldt, whose passion for minerals had developed at an early age, enrolled at the Bergakademie Freiberg to study mining, mineralogy and geology. His academic mentor was Abraham Gottlob Werner, the “inventor” of mineralogy. His collection of minerals and gemstones was probably the largest and most systematically comprehensive the 21 year-old Humboldt had ever seen. In the last two hundred years, however, it has grown enormously. The classic collection was extended and divided into part collections dedicated to mineralogy, petrology, economic geology, palaeontology, stratigraphy and fuel geology, which themselves could compete with the major international collections.

A collector’s treasures

In 2004, the mineralogical collection was significantly augmented by a private donation. The famous Swiss mineral collector Erika Pohl-Ströher deposited her treasures – probably the largest private collection of minerals in the world – on permanent loan to the TU Bergakademie Freiberg on the condition that they should be accessible to a broad public and scientifically supervised. In the course of 60 years, Erika Pohl- Ströher had collected many tens of thousands of specimens from all over the world, selecting above all on aesthetic grounds. From a scientific point of view this is extremely interesting because minerals of this quality and size are seldom accessible to academic mineralogists. The magnificent crystals are an excellent way of arousing people’s interest in mineralogy and are not just there to serve as teaching material for students or as objects of research.

The raspberry coloured flaming crystal aggregate is a rhodochrosite from South Africa (1.7 cm). Foto: TU Bergakademie Freiberg /  J. Wittig, Dresden

In 2008, the minerals, precious stones and meteorites in the Pohl-Ströher mineral collection finally found their rightful place in the newly reconstructed and renovated castle at Freiberg, Schloss Freudenstein, which in Humboldt’s time was derelict and used as a prison, military hospital, armoury and mining depot. Under the leadership of the director of the Geoscientific Collections at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Gerhard Heide, the terra mineralia was born: 1,500 square metres of state-of-the-art exhibition space in the historical ambiance of the castle housing a fascinating exhibition of exceptional collector’s items. The interior design, the lighting and more than 140 bespoke showcases are a completely new way of presenting to the visitor the 3,500 minerals, known to collectors as specimens, in all their variety of forms and in their blaze of colours.

A mineralogical world tour

An apophyllite on stilbite (diameter 8.6 cm) from Maharashtra, India: millions of years before the Cubists created their works of art, this group of crystals formed from green apophyllite, a hydrous silicate. Foto: TU Bergakademie Freiberg / Detlef Müller

The idea of the terra mineralia exhibition is to send visitors on a round-the-world-trip, a tour on which they get to see minerals from every part of the world and experience one of the wonders of nature. In four halls dedicated to the continents of Africa, America, Asia and Europe and a further area for minerals from Australia you can find breathtaking exhibits discovered there. And then there is the particular highlight of the terra mineralia, the treasury, where the largest and most beautiful mega specimens from all five continents are exhibited in a Renaissance vault. Here the showcases actually had to be built around the specimens. There is only one exhibit visitors are allowed to touch: 2 square metres of plate in shades of rosé, grey and black from the largest and oldest meteorite crater in the world, Vredefort in South Africa.

The travellers themselves must decide whether they succumb to the fascination of the specimens’ form and colour or whether they dare to set off on a real research trip, an expedition with students from the Bergakademie as their guides. You can discover interesting facts about the properties of minerals, the processes of formation and metamorphosis and even the use of minerals.

The exhibition would remind Alexander von Humboldt of many of his own travel experiences. He retained his passion for minerals throughout his life. He collected them himself on his research journeys to Russia and South America. But he is unlikely to have come across such brilliant and perfectly formed pieces as those presented in the terra mineralia very often.

Incidentally, Alexander von Humboldt plays an important role for those visiting the exhibition. “He” discusses the exhibits with a Freiberg student as part of the exhibition audio guide, ensuring visitors a very lively guided tour.

Comment on article

If you are an Humboldtian and have logged in, you have the option of commenting on this article or other Humboldtians' comments. (Please read the comment guidelines first)

Comment guidelines

Remember login

• Password or Humboldt ID forgotten?