PTTK Regional Museum in Olkusz

In front of a house on Olkusz's market square stands a statue of a miner holding a sword. Inside the museum behind him is a real sword, known as the executioner's sword. Legend says two miners were beheaded with it for searching for silver under the town against orders. The Antoni Minkiewicz PTTK Regional Museum has been running since 1911. Since 1968 it has occupied a 16th-century townhouse called the Batorówka.

History: a museum that survived two wars

The museum was founded in 1911 by members of the Polish Sightseeing Society. During the First World War it closed for a time, and the collection moved premises several times. During the German occupation it was hidden by trusted local people. The museum reopened in 1958, first on Sławkowska Street and then on Floriańska Street. In 1965 restoration began on the house at Rynek 20, where tradition says King Stephen Báthory once stayed, hence its name. The museum opened there in 1968, and in 1972 the building passed to the PTTK, the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society. Since 1989 the museum has been named after Antoni Minkiewicz, a mining engineer and one of its founders.

What to see

The collection is divided into four sections, alongside a regional library:

• Mining: the history of silver and lead mining, the source of Olkusz's wealth for centuries.
• History of Olkusz and the region, including the executioner's sword behind the legend of the beheaded miners.
• Ethnography, including folk religious art.
• Art: paintings and sculpture.
• The ilkusiana, a library of 1,150 volumes on the former Olkusz district.

Interesting facts

The town's guide to the Silver Trail of the Olkusz Miners points to a detail that backs up the sword legend: an old mine shaft survives in the Batorówka's cellar. Olkusz miners dug tunnels right under the houses, and the workings threatened to bring down the walls of houses and churches. The statue of the miner with a sword outside the museum is one of the stops on this town trail.

Tripto tip

This is a small museum, and the opening hours given in different sources do not match. Before your visit, call the PTTK branch in Olkusz to check when you can get in. Groups usually book by phone. Allow about an hour. Combine your visit with a walk along the Silver Trail of the Olkusz Miners: the miner statues lead you around the square, along Floriańska Street past the Fire Brigade Museum and on to the "Underground Olkusz" exhibition by the square. At the cultural centre on Szpitalna Street you can see a small shaft of the Pilecka Adit, dug in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.