Papp Gábor szerk.: A dunabogdányi Csódi-hegy ásványai (Topographia Mineralogica Hungariae 6. Miskolc, 1999)

Kőbányászat és kőfaragás Dunabogdányban (Hála József)

Topographia Mineralogica Hungáriáé Vol. VI. 15-38. Miskolc, 1999 KŐBÁNYÁSZAT ÉS KŐFARAGÁS DUNABOGDÁNYBAN Quarrying and stonemasonry in Dunabogdány (Visegrád Mts., Hungary) Steinbruchindustrie und Steinbearbeitung in Dunabogdány (Visegráder Gebirge, Ungarn) HÁLA József Abstract: The Csódi Hill laccolith at Dunabogdány has been considered as a textbook example for more than a century. Its beautiful minerals occupy valuable place in Hungarian and foreign collections. Besides being a "locus classicus" for geology, petrography and mineralogy, the hill has industrial significance as well. The dacite (formerly classified as andésite) has been quarried for more than 150 years. Dunabogdány village was founded in the Middle Ages. Its Hungarian population was decimated during the Ottoman rule (16—17th century) and significant number of settlers arrived from Germany in the early 18th century. Until the middle of the 20th century the majority of the population was Roman Catholic, speaking an archaic German dialect. People specialised in wine and fruit production, overwhelmed by quarrying since the last third of the 19th century. There were ten quarries in Dunabogdány during the 19th and 20th century, nine of them on Csódi Hill. Seven of them can be visited today: 1. Alsó (Lower) Quarry (now Quarry I), opened in 1860; 2. Bán Quarry (now Quarry II), late 19th century; 3. Új (New) Quarry (now Quarry III), 1871; 4. Mayer Quarry (now Quarry IV), 1840s; 5. Hátsó (Back) Quarry (now Quarry V), late 19th century; 6. Mély (Deep) Quarry (now Quarry VI), 1867; 7. Felső (Upper) Quarry (now Quarry VII), 1845 (Figs. 1-3). The Wallenfeld family, one of the quarry owner families in Dunabogdány, had significant role in 19th—20th century quarrying industry in Hungary (Fig. 4). The family is still remembered of in the village; their memory is preserved by the 'riccer' banner, the stonecutters' flag, consecrated in 1898 (Figs. 5-6). Tradition holds, that quarrying and stonecutting was learned from Italian workmen in the 19th century. However, mostly local people worked on Csódi Hill, sometimes helped out by workers from other regions of Hungary (Fig. 7-8). During the industrial boom at the turn of the 20th century quarry owners employed several hundred workers. Stonecutters, who learned their profession in Dunabogdány, were welcome elsewhere in Hungary as well. Most of the quarrying and stonecutting work was done by simple tools up to the 1960s (Fig. 9). Then a major reconstruction started, machinery was introduced. The first separator was built in the 1960s, the second in the early 1970s (Fig. 10). A standing crusher was built in 1982 and a mobile one somewhat later. The Csódi Hill quarries mostly supplied stone for river construction and for roads. A few of the quarries produced tables, benches, feeding troughs, landmarks, tombstones and stairs. The now active Dunakő Ltd. produces blocks for river construction and building stone. Transport within the quarries and to the loading station on the Danube river was done by push carts and by animal-drawn carts, between the 1920s and 1965 by narrow-gauge train (Fig. 12). Since that time heavy trucks are used. The new river port (Fig. 13) and the road connecting it to the quarries was built in the early 1970s (Fig. 10). The stone was mostly used for road construction in Pest and Buda from the earliest times of quarrying. Large blocks were used for the protection of the Danube banks mostly, and along other rivers in Hungary. Various volcanic rocks have been formed by skilled stonecutters into fine carvings for religious and household objects (Figs. 14-19). Ornamental pillars for gates and stone benches (Figs. 16-19) are memories of the old times of Dunabogdány.