The ''Mooskappe'' is an old, traditional

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...

s head covering. It was intended to protect miners when working underground from the impact of small rockfalls and from hitting their heads against the gallery roof (''Firste''). The term is German and this type of hat was worn especially in the Harz Mountains of Germany.

It is known that the ''Mooskappe'' was definitely used in the Harz and

Barsinghausen Barsinghausen is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated at the Deister chain of hills approx. 20 km west of Hanover. Barsinghausen belongs to the historic landscape Calenberg Land and was first mentioned i ...

mining regions. It appears in steel engravings from about 1850, for example by

Wilhelm Ripe Wilhelm Ripe (16 November 1818 – 5 December 1885) was a German painter and graphic designer. Ripe was born in Hahnenklee in 1818. His contributions were during the era of Romanticism. He died in Goslar Goslar (; Eastphalian: ''Goslär'' ...

, as an important item of safety gear. In 1824

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...

visited the ''Caroline'' and ''Dorothea'' mines at Clausthal, writing about these visits in various works. About the miner's uniforms he says: The ''Mooskappe'' was usually made of a hard, green felt, but there were also "crocheted" (''gehäkelte'') designs. The shape is either clearly cylindrical but it can also be dome-shaped.

References

Caps History of mining in Germany Miners' clothing {{Clothing-stub

See also

References