The first documentation of the mine dates from 1044, when
Casimir I granted a privilege. Monks collected salt around that time. Since the 13th century,
brine welling up to the surface had been collected and processed for its
sodium chloride (table-salt) content. In this period, wells began to be sunk, and the first shafts to be dug to extract the
rock salt. From the late 13th to the early 14th century, the Saltworks Castle was built. Wieliczka is now home to the Kraków Saltworks Museum. King
Casimir III the Great contributed greatly to the development of the Wieliczka Salt Mine, granting it many privileges and taking the miners under his care. In 1363 he founded a hospital near the salt mine. It is said that he turned a Poland of wood into a Poland of stone due to the great amount of wood from the neighbouring forests used as scaffolding and supports. This has brought huge revenues to the state. By 1871, the mine was considered one of the most productive in the world.
Scientific American identified three different qualities of salt around this time. Green salt contained clay and was opaque.
Spiza salt was sandy and crystalline.
Szybik salt was the purest and most crystalline. Over the period of the mine's operation, many chambers were dug In 1915, salt mine workers were paid the equivalent of 20 cents per day. During
World War II, the mine was used by the occupying Germans as an underground facility for war-related manufacturing. Between August and October 1944, Jewish concentration camp prisoners were put to hard labour in the salt mines. In 1978 the Wieliczka Salt Mine was placed on the original
UNESCO list of
World Heritage Sites. The mine was on the
List of World Heritage in Danger from 1989 to 1998. This was due to the threat of serious damage being done to the sculptures from humidity caused by artificial ventilation introduced in the later 19th century. A legend about
Princess Kinga of Poland, associated with the Wieliczka mine, tells of a Hungarian princess about to be married to
Bolesław V the Chaste, the
Prince of Kraków. As part of her dowry, she asked her father,
Béla IV of Hungary, for a lump of salt, since salt was prizeworthy in Poland. Her father
King Béla took her to a salt mine in Máramaros. She threw her engagement ring from Bolesław in one of the shafts before leaving for Poland. On arriving in Kraków, she asked the miners to dig a deep pit until they come upon a rock. The people found a lump of salt in there and when they split it in two, discovered the princess's ring. Kinga had thus become the patron saint of salt miners in and around the Polish capital. During the Nazi occupation, several thousand Jews were transported from the forced labour camps in
Plaszow and
Mielec to the Wieliczka mine to work in the underground armament factory set up by the Germans in March and April 1944. The
forced labour camp of the mine was established in St. Kinga Park and had about 1,700 prisoners. The Jews were transported to factories in
Litoměřice (Czech Republic) and
Linz (Austria). The mine is one of Poland's official national
Historic Monuments (
Pomniki historii), as designated in the first round, 16 September 1994. Its listing is maintained by the
National Heritage Board of Poland. In 2010 it was successfully proposed that the nearby historic
Bochnia Salt Mine (Poland's oldest salt mine) be added to the list of
UNESCO World Heritage sites. The two sister salt mines now appear together in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites as the "Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines". In 2013 the UNESCO World Heritage Site was expanded by the addition of the
Żupny Castle. ==Tourism==