1111 – Dwelling from Blatten, Valais

The last occupant of this house was Josef Ebener (1900–1976). As an elderly man he permitted only certain villagers well known to him to enter his home. Yet the reclusive unmarried mountain farmer was a well-read citizen and even wrote stage plays. The house, too, is unusual: among a number of houses of the 15th and 16th centuries it is one of the first in the Lötschen valley to bear an inscription in Arabic numerals as we write them today – the number 1568 is carved into the "Binda", the carrying timber for the parlour ceiling. Since that time, practically all houses in the valley bear the date and the name of the builder on the outer ceiling joist, even into the 20th century.

Until recently, we knew only that houses of this type were rather old or we estimated them to be from the 16th century. Dendrochronological investigations by the Swiss Farmhouse Research Institute in 2004–2007 revealed that there were more than thirty such houses in the Lötschen valley and dated some to the period of 1410–1530. Both the age and the quantity were a surprise.

Eight old dwelling houses dated between 1176 and 1341 are known in Central Switzerland. They were built by a political and economic upper class. One of these houses, the house of 1336 from Canton Schwyz (751) is here in Ballenberg. In contrast to these buildings, the Lötschen valley houses are 100 to 200 years younger. They comprise a cellar, a living floor with parlour and open hearth kitchen and rooms on an upper floor. They are modest dwellings for a population of small mountain farmers. Today the dimensions and details of the houses betray neither riches nor social differentiation. That was perhaps formerly revealed by other indicators such as possession of livestock or real estate.