Ancient Bodnerhaus

The farm in Carinthia is older than America

At first, even those who have been involved with the Bodnerhaus in the open-air museum in Maria Saal for decades did not want to believe it, but the samples are clear: the farmhouse was built in 1470, it is 549 years old and therefore the oldest log house in Carinthia - and Austria!

Using dendrochronology, i.e. tree ring research, experts from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences have determined the age of the wood in the Bodnerhaus. The result is considered a sensation: "The spruce and larch trees were felled in 1469 and earlier," says Heimo Schinnerl, director of the open-air museum. He also found the Bodnerhaus, which once stood in St. Oswald, in the Benedictine register: it was built in 1470.

"None of my colleagues in Austria has such an old building in an open-air museum," says Schinnerl: "The house was built before Columbus discovered America!" Igor Pucker from the Provincial Department of Art and Culture, Christian Wieser from the Provincial Museum and Rudolf Planton from the Carinthian Open-Air Museum Association as well as Governor Peter Kaiser are also proud of the ancient building culture in the oldest museum of its kind: "The Day of Carinthian Folk Culture will be held around the Bodnerhaus on Sunday." With music, dance, craftsmanship, exciting and amusing traditional events.