Dresden/Rochlitz (dpa/sn) – The Rochlitz porphyry tuff was the first rock from Germany to be included in a list of the world’s most important types of natural stone. As the TU Dresden announced on Tuesday, the building block from Northwest Saxony is now a “Heritage Stone”. The title is awarded by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). So far, 32 rocks from 17 countries have carried it.
According to TU Dresden, porphyry tuff has been mined near Rochlitz since the early twelfth century. Since then he has shaped the structural heritage of the region. Among other things, it was used in the construction of the Leipzig town hall, the Romanesque monastery church in Wechselburg and in the design of the tomb of Immanuel Kant in Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The facade of the Catholic provost church in Leipzig, consecrated in 2015, is also made from the building material.
