Immenburg (Horn-Bad Meinberg)

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The Immenburg or Imburg is a parcel in the area of ​​the Externsteine , or in the FFH protected area Externsteine in Horn-Bad Meinberg , Lippe district in North Rhine-Westphalia . It is located immediately northeast of the natural monument and on the left of the Wiembecke and the upper Wiembecketeich .

Forest map from 1833 with a parcel called Imburg .

The name Immenburg has been known since the 19th century at the latest. This is what a forest map from 1833 calls the name Imburg.

The businessman and mayor of Horner and ( amateurish ) lay researcher Gotthilf August Benjamin Schierenberg allowed himself to be tempted to fabulate the location of the Externsteine in the national exuberance of the time after the founding of the empire in 1871 and his then newly discovered fascination with the mythological texts of the Edda . Completely devoid of any philological and historical expertise and methods, he took gods / names of persons and places from certain passages of the Nordic texts in order to represent the Externsteine ​​and the surrounding area as the "Germanic Olympia" and to prove that the Nordic-Germanic gods lived. He wrote Immenburg in 1875 at Heimdalls Himinbjörg as guardian of Asgard . Appropriately for him, he interpreted the name of the “Wiembecke” absurdly as “Wieh-bach” from Old Saxon / Old High German wīh for “holy, sanctuary” (as Old Norse vé ), i.e. as the body of water that rises in the sanctuary or the holy district. In his zeal and sense of mission for his “discoveries”, he turned to the then leading expert for “Germanic antiquity” Karl Müllenhoff , who refused to deal with Schierenberg's elaborations.

In 1934 and 1935, extensive archaeological excavations were carried out in the area around the Externsteine under the direction of the Münster geologist and active NSDAP member Julius Andree with the help of the Reich Labor Service , the documentation of which has been incomplete since 1945. These excavations are generally regarded by today's scientific archeology as "initiated archaeological purpose research ". Parts of a wall with a wooden structure were discovered and examined by Andree during these excavations on the Immenburg parcel. Andree first described his finds in his report on the Externsteine ​​in the third edition in 1939, but here with an excursus of several pages.

Wilhelm Teudt wrote as early as 1936: "The discovery of a walling with a wooden structure, similar to that in Oesterholz , deserves special attention , from which it can be concluded that either the sanctuary itself or the oak grove next to it was a hill fort." that the Externsteine ​​had been venerated as a sanctuary. Teudt's theses are rejected by specialist science. But they still influence esoteric and neo-pagan circles today .

Cross section through two adjacent walls. Below: possible reconstruction of the ramparts. From: Teudt, Germanische Heiligtümer, 1936. Quoted from: Andree, 1939, fig. 50.

Andree published in 1939: “On the left bank of the Wiembeke there is a high oak forest, which comprises two parcels with the names Schliepstein and Immenburg (the latter on a forest map from 1833, Fig. 43, called Imburg). Near the Wiembeke in the Immenburg there are ramparts about 0.8–1 m high, running roughly WO. The subsoil of the site (Fig. 44) is formed by gray Keupertones , over which, but not everywhere, dark, boggy peat with a maximum thickness of 5–10 cm lies: these are peaty swamps on the impermeable clays. This is followed by about 30 to average. 50 cm light sands, which end with a humus top edge of around 10 cm. According to the pollen analysis ( kindly carried out by Prof. Dr. Budde -Dortmund), the peat can be found around 1000–500 BC at the earliest. Ztr. Originated. The covering with the light sands may have taken place at the beginning of the Ztr., Caused by floods of the Wiembeke and by washing away the weathering sands of the Osningsandstein from the eastern slope of the Bärenstein . The examination of the ramparts consisting of these sands (Fig. 45) showed that they were once round timber - now of course completely gone - from average. 30 or less cm in diameter, the traces of which are z. Some of them were clearly visible in the sands (Figs. 46 and 48). The round timbers mostly lay roughly in the longitudinal direction of the ramparts (Figs. 46 and 48), sometimes also diagonally to the ramparts (Fig. 47); Wood several meters long could be detected (Fig. 48). Cross-sections of the round timbers were often clearly visible (Figs. 48 and 49) - it is impossible that these are fallen, rotten trees. The round timbers were often parallel to each other and to the direction of the wall, further z. Partly at the top of the ramparts, no traces of thicker branches were found anywhere (the diagonally lying pieces of wood in Fig. 47 are partly thicker than the lengthways, so no branches!). This leads to the conclusion that the ramparts had a wooden structure that gave them the necessary strength. Fig. 50 (top) shows a cross-section through two ramparts (up to 14 round timbers were observed in one rampart), from which it can be seen that when the ramparts fell into disrepair, most of the timber rolled down in ditches to the left and right of the ramparts. Accordingly, the walls may have had the shape as shown in Fig. 50 (below): round timbers stacked on top of each other (7 on each side?), At a distance of approx. 1.10-1.50 m inside held together by crossbars (?, But see Fig. 47) and filled with sand, left and right of the wall a trench down to the clay. Since post holes have not yet been determined, it is uncertain whether the round timbers were held in place on the outside by vertical posts. No broken fragments or other finds were made. The age of the ramparts is therefore currently unknown; they could at the earliest from the time around shortly after the start of the time. come. - It has not yet been possible to prove whether the walls are in any way related to the external stones. "

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Freerk Haye Hamkens : The Externstein. Paths and aberrations of research. Weeke Horn, 2000, page 212 ff.
  2. ↑ Ludger Kerssen: The interest in the Middle Ages in the German National Monument . (= Work on early medieval research, Volume 8). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1975 [Reprint 2014], ISBN 978-3-11-084067-4 , p. 123 ff. ( Google book search ).
  3. ^ Gotthilf AB Schierenberg : A historical walk from Tropaea Drusi over the Exterstein to the Idistavisus campus. In: Supplement to the correspondence sheet of the Gesamtverein der Deutschen Geschichts- und Alterthumsvereine , Volume 23, Mittler, 1875, Pages 1–23, here 19.
  4. ↑ compare Albrecht Greule : Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-019039-7 , pp. 590-591 on the name "Wiembeke" at Lemgo.
  5. ↑ Erich Kittel : The Externsteine ​​as a playground for swarming spirits and in the judgment of science. Detmold 1965, pp. 12-17.
  6. ↑ a b Uta Halle : "The Externsteine ​​are Germanic until further notice!" Prehistoric archeology in the Third Reich . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2002 (= special publications of the natural science and historical association for the state of Lippe, 68), ISBN 3-89534-446-X
  7. ^ A b Wilhelm Teudt : Germanic sanctuaries: contributions to the discovery of the prehistory. Verlag Diederichs, fourth edition, 1936, page 63.
  8. ↑ a b Julius Andree : The Externsteine. A Germanic place of worship. Münster, third edition, 1939, pages 58–63.
  9. ^ Friedrich Focke : Contributions to the history of the Externsteine. W. Kohlhammer (1943), p. 18.

Coordinates: 51 ° 52 ′ 13 "  N , 8 ° 55 ′ 15.5"  E