6. Sloping channel and shaft 2
In this area, a further sloping channel is visible above the wheel chamber. This second sloping channel leads to the mining shaft 2 lying on the slope. Such vertical shafts were used for entering the horizontal galleries which led to the veins in the gneiss in-situ. In the mining site, some shafts served as air supply duct or as winding shaft for the extracted ores. Then the filled baskets were raised to the surface by means of a reel. Shaft 2 is one of the three mining shafts which are still open and vertically carved in the rock in the Middle Age.
On the surface, the shaft has a cross-sectional area of 3.5 m x 3 m. Then in a depth of about 28 m the shaft narrows to 1.4 x 1.6 m. Finally, on a deeper level of 42 m the shaft reaches a chamber with the size of 6 m x 6 m. From this chamber, different routes go in different directions to the extraction sites (galleries without entrance) which have partially collapsed. Presumably, this chamber was used as wheel chamber for the water wheel that drained water in the deeper extraction sites. These sites have collapsed, too. The sloping channel led water to the shafts to drive the water wheels on the slope.