Mönchstein (Schierke)
The Mönchstein near the Schierke district of the city of Wernigerode in the Harz National Park is a granite stone with a drawing of a person on it who is called a monk because of the monk's cap on his head. The first documentary mention of the Mönchstein is said to come from 1518 as Münch im Schuppenthal . Recent research shows that this view cannot be upheld, but that the first mention is a hand drawing from the first half of the 18th century, which shows the different boundary lines at Schierke, among other years also from 1518.
Geographical location
The Mönchstein stands in the Schuppental in the Hochharz not far from the Brockenchaussee , which is closed to public traffic, near the old Schierker bobsleigh run . The way there is a dead end and must not be left in order not to endanger nature.
history
In earlier times the stone was only briefly referred to as the Münch .
The Münch is mentioned in several whale books of the 17th and 18th centuries. Such books probably had their origins in real notebooks, in which ore prospectors recorded the sites and path markers they knew. Most of them are handwritten. Although the information in the whale books could often be easily refuted, the whale books contributed to the belief in the existence of whales and Venetians, laden with treasures from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, until the end of the 18th century Returned home.
The texts in the whale books often describe very ephemeral waypoints: tree stumps, sawed-off branches or trees that have grown strangely; Hands cut into the tree bark, crosses, or simple alchemical symbols. Monks are often given as whale signs carved in stone, especially in the Harz Mountains, who either - like the monk stone in Schierke - point with their arm in a certain direction, or carry a wedge pick on their back, and occasionally also the figure of a bishop.
Ilka Stitz processed the story of the Mönchstein in her 2014 novel Harzblut poetically.
literature
- Ernst Pörner : The Mönchstein near Schierke. In: Natur und Heimat , 4, 1955.
- Günther Herlitze: Venetians in the Harz Mountains. Legend and reality (Mönchstein near Schierke) . In: Unser Harz 40/11, pp. 223-228.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Journal of the Harz Association for History and Antiquity, 1929
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 ′ 4.2 " N , 10 ° 38 ′ 50.5" E