Karst Living Museum

The Karst Living Museum is a theme and a learning path. It representes the Classical Karst and as an ecologically important area includes a high intensity of Karst phenomena. In 2017, it was given the title Best theme path in Slovenia and a wider area is included among the Natura 2000 sites.

The area

The Karst Living Museum covers more than 700 hectares between Sežana, Lipica and the former Slovene-Italian border, along the old Austro-Hungarian road from Sežana to Bazovizza. This area was closed to the public for almost half a century. Today it includes 20 kilometres of cross-border walking and cycling theme paths. On the Slovene side, the path starts near the Sežana fire station 45.698931°N 13.870303°E / 45.698931; 13.870303.

Karst nature and landscape

Typical Karst phenomena found in this area are sinkholes, uvalas, karenns, chasms and caves.

The nature had created geomorphologic shapes, which became a synonym for the Karst phenomena and gave a basis to the science of karstology. The main reason for the creation of Karst relief is the solubility – the corrosion of limestone as a consequence of the chemical action between water, CO2 and organic acids. 

The surface shaped of limestone have specific names like the rills (žlebiči), karenns (škraplje – škraplijšča), kamenitzas (škaune), stone tables called mushrooms, hums (osamelci), karst rocks (griže) etc. Other, bigger forms of the Karst surface are represented by shallow valleys (dolinice) and deeper valleys. They can have round and elongated shape, dish-shaped or stepped-shape. Deep, steep and kettleshaped valleys with a narrow and close bottom are called sinkholes (vrtače). Deeper and larger than sinkholes are called collapse dolines (udorne doline). They were created hundred thousands years ago in the Late Pleistocene during the long-term destruction of the ceilings of the underground caves.

The cave Golokratna jama is one of this dolines, situated in the area of the Karst Living Museum. In the Karst area there are no surface water resources. Water courses disappear in the underground where they formed numerous caves through deepening and changing of their directions. The Karst underground caves present numerous calcareous formations. There can be found many different rock shapes and sediments (mainly caves clay). Some underground water courses never changed their way and today are the same as in the past. In 2003 the cave explorers of the Sežana Society of Cave Exploration reached the underground stream of the Reka River in Kanjaduce cave and followed it for about 800 metres. A year later they reached the stream of the Reka River at the depth of 340 metres inside an abyss in Stršinkna valley.

Biodiversity

For centuries the autochthonous Karst vegetation has been resisting bora and draught on the shallow Karst soil. Biotic diversity consists of sub-Mediterranean vegetation with xerophilic Illyrian species and the Middle Europe vegetation.

Some typical vegetation of the Karst Living Museum is the common houseleek, wild asparagus, mountain anemone, wild peony and hellebore. In the area of Lipica there is crocus. On the slopes of Orleška Draga, where the cold air is trapped near the ground due to temperature inversion, grows auricula – mountain cowslip or bear’s ears and some other plants of higher altitudes. From spring to autumn the following flowers spring out: violets, primroses, lilies of the valley, daffodils, golden daisies, peonies and cyclamens.

The landscape of Lipica is marked by mighty oaks (downy oak, turkey oak, durmast oak). On these ancient trees lives a parasite - the mistletoe. Characteristic for the Lipica surroundings are field maple, minor maple and linden. Among the original deciduous trees there are the hop hornbeam, common hornbeam, ash, hazel and wild cherry. The shrubs majorly present are blackthorn, juniper, smoke tree, barberry, common elder and mahaleb cherry.

The Karst landscape is also a habitat of many animal species. In the forest live roe deer, brown hares, squirrels, dormice, badgers, wild boars and common deer. Night predators as foxes, wild cats, beech marten and weasels are frequent. Jackal, wolf and brown bear can be noticed. Birds also contribute to the nature diversity: titmouse, nuthatch, jay, black woodpecker, crow, little owl and other rare and endangered species: eagle owl, scops owl, skylark, nightjar, hoopoe, honey buzzard and short-toed snake eagle.

On the rocky slopes live bats and rare rock pigeons. In the dark, underground streams and lakes live organisms are also present. In the abyss of the Stršinkna Valley a human fish (Proteus anguina) and various underground fauna have been found.

The Karst gmajna (common uncultivated land) is a home of the horned viper, black snake, green lizard and sand lizard. In puddles there are grass-snakes, in the gardens small snakes and in devastated facilities rat snakes. Here also lives the nose-horned viper, the western wip snake and lizards, the green lizard and the common wall lizard. In ponds can be found the slow-worm in gardens and the aesculapian snake in abandoned buildings.

Cultural heritage

For centuries the only source of water for the Karst people were ponds (kali) and wells (štirne). They provided the potable water for household and cattle. The ponds were obtained from natural basins. The slope was leveled and the bottom deepened. The layer of clay (20 cm thick) was laid down and pressed into the soil to seal the bottom. The clay was protected by stone lining (škrle – flat stones, slates). The cattle pressed the stone grounding with its own weight during watering, thus clay preserved moisture and sealing. The village people used to meet near ponds and in the winter the children used to skate on ice. The locals used the ponds also to obtain ice. In the winter they cut ice and conserved it in special facilities – ice houses (ledenice). In the summer they used to drive the ice by old carts to Trieste. The nearest preserved ice house with stairs is situated in the area of Lipica Stud Farm, close to the existing pond.

The rainwater was collected also by building wells. A strong will and hard work was needed to obtain potable water. The construction of New well Sežana–Orlek, one of rare preserved samples of wells, built in the middle of a common land (gmajna), confirms that. New well has a round shape, with a diameter of about 9 meters and it’s 3 meters deep. Two-sided staircase leads to it. Behind piled-up stone blocks, on the bottom of the well, stuffed clay maintains the rain water on the surface. After 1822, in a similar way, were built a well in Štirna Valley and a well in Lusca in Orlek.

An important achievement was the construction of the village community well in 1880. The rain water was collected from the nearby roofs and conduced through the constructed canal and clay pipes into a well. The excess water went into a pound. The local people who did not have their own wells, used the water from the village well. At the lack of water the well was locked and custodians delivered water to the village people. Wealthier village people built wells on their own yards. Wells were excavated in the stony ground. The wells were surrounded by finely sculptured stones and sealed by clay. The above part of the štirna is called šap (stone frame of a well), made of one or several pieces. In the village Orlek there are the Čotova štirna from 1881 and the over 250 year-old Stršinkna štirna. A real relief for the whole Karst was the construction of the main water pipeline from Brestovica to Komen across the entire Karst after 1982.

Karst shepherds’ huts are an expression of the life of a Karst man, famer by his nature. They are a typical example of folk architecture using raw stone, removed from gmajna (common uncultivated land), as constructing material. The huts offered shelter to shepherds against bora and summer rain and were built as free-standing or leaned on big rocks and dry walls. In small huts there is place for two or three persons, while in the bigger ones seven people can be accommodated.

Karst dry stone walls today represent a special Karst feature giving the characteristic and aesthetic look to the Karst landscape. While clearing the pastures and meadows, people built walls using removed stones. The name dry walls means that they were  built without using mortar or other binders.

Stone milestones are a unique part of cultural heritage witnessing how people used to settle the land property relations and the use of land. The milestones marked administrative boundaries, which determined ownership, the division of authority and the management of sites regarding tax-raising.

Archeological and geological heritage

The area of the Karst Living Museum is an abundant archaeological site with various findings of fossils, animal bones and ancient artefacts. In the cave Ludvikova jama, in the vicinity of Orlek, animal fossil bones from the Pleistocene period were found. The bones belong to a wolverine (Gulo gulo), the biggest marten, living today in the arctic and subarctic areas of the globe. Other prehistoric sites are the cave Jama v Partu pri Ogradi, the rock of Krnavica and the rock-shelter Malenca, where the remains of earthware and coal were found, together to faunal remains of sheep, goats and wild animals (deer). In the cave Jama v sežanski gmajni pieces of earthware from the late Roman period were found.

The Karst area has a rich Paleontological heritage. There is a collection of fossils from the Cretaceous collected by local inhabitant Viktor Saksidain the Sežana Municipality. In the Botanical park in Sežana is exhibited a geological collection of the most important Karst rocks from more than 100 million year-old limestone of Brje formation, up to shallow water rocks of Povir formation and the well-known Komen limestone with the fossils of fish and reptiles. There can be seen typical types of rudist limestones, flat limestones with well-preserved fossils and plenty of chert, an indispensable soil component for Teran growing. Sedimentation environment was favourable also for the creation of thin layers of high calorific black coal. The museum collection also presents different types of flysch rocks.

See also

• Karst
• Karst Plateau
• Caves