Motnik

About

Motnik (pronounced [mɔˈtniːk]; German: Möttnig) is a village in the Tuhinj Valley in the Municipality of Kamnik in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.

The parish church in Motnik is dedicated to Saint George and is a Baroque building with 19th-century furnishings. Close by is a smaller church, the chapel of Mary Magdalene.

Close to the settlement is also an abandoned brown coal mine in which the fossilized remains of a pygmy rhinoceros were discovered in 1910. They were found to be 25 million years old and are now displayed in a small museum in the village.

The Prešeren Shaft ( Slovene : Prešernov rov ) was the lower entrance into a lignite mine in Motnik, from which brown coal was periodically extracted from 1855 to 1951. Only the stone arch of the entry to the shaft, with the name of the shaft carved into it, now remains.