Old King

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Old King
View from a field path on the Schwalbach tributary Grumbach near Limesstadt to the north-northwest to the Altkönig

View from a field path on the Schwalbach tributary Grumbach
near Limesstadt to the north-northwest to the Altkönig

height 798.2  m above sea level NHN
location at Falkenstein ; Hochtaunuskreis , Hessen ( Germany )
Mountains Taunus
Dominance 2.45 km →  Großer Feldberg
Notch height 136 m ↓  Fuchstanz
Coordinates 50 ° 12 ′ 45 "  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 54"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 12 ′ 45 "  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 54"  E
Altkönig (Hesse)
Old King
particularities - Ringwall Altkönig
- Lips Temple
- Victoria Temple
- White Wall
- Ringwall Hünerberg
View from the south-southeast to the Altkönig with the village of Falkenstein, the Falkenstein castle ruins and the Großer Feldberg behind

View from the south-southeast to the Altkönig with the village of Falkenstein , the Falkenstein castle ruins and the Großer Feldberg behind

Template: Infobox Berg / Maintenance / BILD1
View from the Großer Feldberg observation tower to the Altkönig

The Altkönig (from "alta (...)", i.e. great height) is 798.2  m above sea level. NHN the third highest mountain in the Taunus . With its summit location in the urban area of Kronberg im Taunus , it is close to the Falkenstein district of Königstein im Taunus in the Hessian Hochtaunus district .

With a dominance of 2,450 m and a prominence of a little more than 136 m above the saddle on the Fuchstanz ( 662  m ) leading to the Kleiner Feldberg ( 825.2  m ), the Altkönig is one of the most important Taunus peaks. Together with the Großer Feldberg ( 881.5  m ) and the Kleiner Feldberg, it forms the center of gravity of the Hochtaunus ( Feldberg-Taunuskamm ), but unlike the Feldberg, it is not located on the Taunushauptkamm , but is parallel to the south in front of it.

On the Altkönig there is the Altkönig ring wall and on spurs the Lips and Victoria temples , the White Wall and the Hünerberg ring wall . In the region, the Altkönigschule in Kronberg , the Altkönigstift there and the Altkönighalle in Steinbach, as well as many streets, are named after the mountain.

Surname

Changing names of the mountain are documented. In 1496 he was referred to as "ald kune", 1511 as "alten kune", 1586 as "altkünn" and "alt kin", and in 1780 as "Altkün" and "Altküng". Helmut Bode traces the name back to the Celtic "alkin" (height) . Erasmus Alberus used the term Altköng in his poetry in 1534 and called it the seat of the German king. The sculpture Der Altkönig by Inga Dilcher-Hassenstein (* 1908 in Usingen), which artistically takes up the motif of a legendary old king , has been in the former Camp King in Oberursel since 2004 .

geography

location

The Altkönig rises in the Taunus Nature Park and belongs to the urban area of Kronberg im Taunus . Its summit is about 2.3 km north of Falkenstein , a northeastern district of Königstein im Taunus , and 7 km west-northwest of the core town of Oberursel . On the north-east spur ( 634  m ) of the wooded mountain lies the White Wall , its south- east spur is called Hünerberg ( 375  m ), the south-south-east spur is the Bürgel ( 446.4  m ) and the south spur is the Döngesberg ( 689  m ).

Natural allocation

The Altkönig belongs to the natural spatial main unit group Taunus (No. 30) and in the main unit Hoher Taunus (301) to the subunit Feldberg-Taunuskamm (301.3). Its landscape descends to the south and southeast into the natural areas Königsteiner Taunusfuß (300.20) and Kronberger Taunusfuß (300.21), which belong to the sub-unit Altkönig Vorstufe (300.2) in the main unit Vortaunus (300) .

Flowing waters

The Maßborn (Massborn) flows north past the Altkönig as one of several source streams of the Urselbach, which rises on the lower part of its northern flank and then flows east of the mountain . The Treisbornbach rises on the western flank as a tributary of the Reichenbach, which runs southwards .

Protected areas

The Altkönig nature reserve is located on the Altkönig ( CDDA no. 81275; designated 1944; 2.0555  km² ) and the Altkönig fauna-flora-habitat area (FFH no. 5716-305; 75.11 ha ) is on its summit region .  .

Ramparts and temples

Ringwall Altkönig : inner wall
View from Lips Temple to Burghain and Falkenstein Castle ruins . In the back left on the horizon the Melibokus in the Odenwald , in front of it the runway west .

Ringwall Altkönig

In the La Tène period , around 400 BC. BC, Celts settled the Old King. The two ring walls and annex walls of the Altkönig ring wall on the summit plateau date from that time . They are around 980 m and 1390 m long and can still be seen today. So far, there is no reliable information about the time and reasons for abandoning the mountain settlement. Around 1900 the summit plateau was still free of trees, because contemporary sources report that, when the visibility was good, the white ramparts on the Altkönig could be seen with the naked eye from Frankfurt, 18 km to the southeast .

Ringwall Hünerberg

In addition, on the Altkönigsporn Hünerberg there is the ring wall Hünerberg , a probably early medieval construction of Franconia .

temple

On the southwest spur of the Altkönigsporn Döngesberg stands the Lips-Tempel refuge ( 606.2  m ), from where the view falls, among other things, to the Altkönig, down to the village of Falkenstein and into the Upper Rhine Plain , to the Falkenstein castle ruins and to the Großer Feldberg . On the southern slope of the Bürgel mountain spur is the Viktoriatempel viewing pavilion with a view of the Upper Rhine Plain and the Odenwald .

Summit plateau

Altkönig: summit plateau in winter

There is a trigonometric point on the lightly wooded summit plateau of the Altkönig . When visibility is good, you can see between trees, including the Upper Rhine Plain and Frankfurt am Main . Tables with benches also invite you to take a break. A small wooden shelter built in 2014 was dismantled in 2015 due to a lack of building or nature conservation approval.

Plane crash

When an airplane crashed on the Altkönig on January 22, 1971 , six people who had previously visited a construction site for the Stadtbahn in Frankfurt were killed. The small plane crashed about 150 meters below and about 820 m south-southeast of the mountain peak. There is a memorial stone at the crash site on the 300-meter path east of the Döngesberg spur .

Traffic and walking

No roads lead to the Altkönig. Therefore it is much less frequented compared to the Großer Feldberg.

Hiking trails to the summit run from all directions, the shortest distance to a larger road, the north-running state road  3004 ( Schmitten - Sandplacken - Oberursel ), about 1.5 km as the crow flies. About the same distance are the residential streets of Falkenstein in the south.

The European long-distance hiking trail E1 leads over the mountain . Not far to the west is the Fuchstanz mountain pass with its two excursion restaurants.

gallery

See also

Web links

Commons : Altkönig  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
  2. ↑ Dominances and celebrities in the Taunus , thehighrisepages.de
  3. ↑ Hermin Herr: Lexicon from the High Taunus. 1993, ISBN 3-7829-0437-0 , pp. 8-9.
  4. ↑ Erasmus Alberus: From an old Ziegochssen, and a young Mestochssen, or Weydochssen. In: The Fables of Erasmus Alberus. Lines 118-123.
  5. ↑ Brigitte Schwenzer: Geographical land survey: The natural space units on sheet 139 Frankfurt a. M. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1967. →  Online map (PDF; 4.9 MB)
  6. ↑ Ring walls on the Altkönig , on taunus.info.
  7. ↑ Hut on the Altkönig - The hut is gone . taunus-zeitung.de. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  8. ↑ Mountain tours - Großer Feldberg, Altkönig, Kleiner Feldberg . thehighrisepages.de. Retrieved July 23, 2011.