The cosy story of the Christmas candle
Museum of Natural History: Lecture on 15 November, 6.30 pm, TIETZ
On Wednesday, 15 November at 6.30 pm, the Friends of the Museum of Natural History Chemnitz invites interested parties to a lecture in the TIETZ event hall. Under the motto "Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt - Die heimelige Geschichte der Weihnachtskerze", Dr Henny Gerschel from the TU Bergakademie Freiberg will be talking about the origins of the raw material pyropissite through to candle production in central Germany in the 19th century.
Admission is free of charge. Registration is not required.
"In the area between Weißenfels and Zeitz, an earthy lignite is mined that has created a great mineral oil and paraffin industry," wrote Emil Riebeck, son of the lignite pioneer and industrialist Carl Adolph Riebeck, in 1880. The natural resource on which these industries were based was lignite. At the very beginning of this development, however, was a special "whitish grey coal that could be ignited by candlelight and which dropped burning drops almost like sealing wax". This pyropissite was the raw material from which paraffin wax for candle production was produced in factories from around 1850 and which also brought light into the 19th century for the less well-off population.
Pyropissite is a special form of soft lignite that occurs between the towns of Zeitz and Weißenfels in the Weißelster basin south of Leipzig. This material, which is brownish in colour when fresh, greasy and easy to process and consists largely of waxes, has been mined as a raw material for the chemical industry since the early 19th century. Candles made from this material were so affordable that they were used by less affluent sections of the population to light Advent wreaths and Christmas trees. This is how the cosy Christmas atmosphere so beloved today spread.
Due to the intensive exploitation of pyropissite deposits, the industry came to a standstill less than a hundred years later. Today, scientific interest is fuelling research into the relict deposits of this raw material. Scientists are using new methods to analyse the properties of this rare coal and draw conclusions about its special formation conditions.