TheMooskappe is an old, traditional minershead covering. It was intended to protect miners when working underground from the impact of smallrockfalls and from hitting their heads against the gallery roof (Firste). The term is German and this type of hat was worn especially in theHarz Mountains of Germany.[1][2]
It is known that theMooskappe was definitely used in theHarz andBarsinghausen mining regions. It appears insteel engravings from about 1850, for example byWilhelm Ripe, as an important item of safety gear. In 1824Heinrich Heine visited theCaroline andDorothea mines atClausthal, writing about these visits in various works. About the miner's uniforms he says:[3]
These [miners] wore dark, wide, usually steel blue, jackets, usually hanging below their bellies, trousers of similar hue, ahide apron tied behind them and a small, green, felt hat, entirely rimless, like a truncated ball.
(Diese (Bergleute) tragen dunkle, gewöhnlich stahlblaue, weite, bis über den Bauch herabhängende Jacken, Hosen von ähnlicher Farbe, ein hinten aufgebundenes Schurzfell und kleine grüne Filzhüte, ganz randlos wie ein abgekappter Kegel.)
— Heinrich Heine,Die Harzreise (1824)
TheMooskappe was usually made of a hard, greenfelt, but there were also "crocheted" (gehäkelte) designs. The shape is either clearly cylindrical but it can also be dome-shaped.[4]
