Protected uranium-mining shaft tower at Kővágószőlős in the Mecsek uranium mining district, representing Hungary’s former uranium ore industry.
The Kővágószőlősi uránbánya — Aknatorony is a protected uranium-mining shaft tower at Kővágószőlős, west of Pécs, in the Mecsek Mountains of southern Hungary. It represents the Mecsek uranium mining district, where uranium ore was discovered in the early 1950s and where Kővágószőlős became one of the principal mining settlements. Local heritage records identify an Uránbányászati aknatorony at Kővágószőlős, and the shaft-tower monument is associated with the former uranium mine infrastructure in the village.
Mining sources record several mine plants in the Kővágószőlős area, including I., III. and IV. mine plants, together with ore-processing, exploration and service installations. If the preserved tower corresponds to the IV. akna memorial, the associated inscription records construction beginning in 1964, a shaft depth of 1,146 metres, closure in 2000, and dedication as a mining memorial in 2004.
The uranium-mining history of Kővágószőlős belongs to the wider Mecsek uranium district of southern Hungary. The village lies at the foot of Jakab Hill, west of Pécs, in the western Mecsek. Uranium ore was discovered in the area in the second half of 1953. The ore deposits occurred in Permian sandstone formations and were difficult to work because the uranium-bearing zones were not continuous seams but irregular lenticular bodies within hard sandstone.
Kővágószőlős became one of the principal uranium-mining settlements of the district. Mining literature records that within the administrative territory of the village there developed several mine plants, including I., III. and IV. mine plants, along with ore-processing, drilling, exploration and service installations. The wider Kővágószőlős uranium mine is described as having operated for nearly forty years, with several shafts established across the mining field and maximum workings reaching deep levels within the Mecsek.
The surviving Aknatorony is recognised in local and heritage documentation as an uranium-mining shaft tower. It forms one of the visible monuments of an industry that shaped Kővágószőlős and the western Mecsek during the socialist and post-socialist period. The IV. akna memorial inscription, if this is the same structure, records that construction began in 1964, the shaft reached 1,146 metres, closure took place in 2000, and the memorial was dedicated on Miners’ Day in 2004. The site is therefore best understood as a preserved mining monument of the former Mecsek uranium industry rather than as a general coal or lignite record.