600 years ago, adventurers of fortune laboriously dug their way into the mountain more than 30 meters deep in search of hidden treasures. It was of no use to them. It is true that grains of gold were actually found in the nearby Saale. But the Untreubach, which flows into the Saale, transported them from far away. The greywacke and argillaceous shale here in and around the adit are completely deaf (meaning worthless in miners' slang). However, the drudgery was not entirely in vain: for centuries, the tunnel was used as a refrigerator for food. The tunnel is now a stop on the geopath.
Actually, it can only mean one thing when a tunnel has been driven into the mountain: the hope of wealth! Because digging a cave in the hard rock is infinitely difficult. 600 years ago there were no steam engines. The cavity was created by hand using only picks, hammers and chisels. A feudal deed (a deed of ownership) from 1472 for a mine on the Saale, including search tunnels for gold, silver and copper, has been preserved in the Hof city archive. Perhaps you are standing at this search tunnel? Deep in the mountain, the end of the tunnel branches out again into two side branches before the miners have given up digging. The side branches show how low and narrow the tunnel was originally (left: 1.80 m tall adult; right: our Hofer gnome, 6-year-old Elisabeth, 1.15 m tall). The tunnel was later extended to store groceries in the cool room.