Menhir from Gößnitz

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The menhir of Gößnitz (also called Langer Stein ) is a prehistoric menhir near Gößnitz , a district of the municipality of An der Poststraße in the Burgenland district , Saxony-Anhalt .

location

According to Waldtraut Schrickel, the original location of the stone was a parcel called "Langer Stein", west of Gößnitz, near the forest. She identified the stone that was once there with a boundary stone set up on the edge of the forest on the way to Lindenberg and Marienthal .

description

The stone is made of sandstone and is pillar-shaped. It has a height of 0.8 m, a width of 0.48 m at the base and 0.35 m at the top and a thickness of 0.2 m. The number 209 is affixed to the top of the front and the year 1879 is affixed to the base. The stone shows traces of impact on the back, which are probably modern. According to Schrickel, the stone was very likely removed from its original location in the course of the separation in the 19th century and set up as a boundary stone at the edge of the forest.

Finds from the area around the stone date from the Neolithic Age (including findings from the Bell Beaker Culture , from the Full Bronze Age and the Middle Ages ).

The current condition of the stone is unclear. Hans-Jürgen Beier still listed it as preserved in 1991, but it is not included in the 2016 land monument list of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The menhir in regional sagas

A boulder was erected near the menhir as a memorial to a district forester who was shot by poachers in 1914 . The legend has passed down that at witching hour a black dog with plate-sized eyes is up to mischief. According to Schrickel, the legend may have passed from the original menhir to the stone that was later erected there.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings as well as the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest. Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe 1. Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, p. 67.
  • A. Berg: The long stone or stone of gods from Seehausen near Magdeburg. In: Germania. 1933, p. 214.
  • Horst Kirchner : The menhirs in Central Europe and the menhir thought (= Academy of Sciences and Literature. Treatises of the humanities and social sciences class. Born 1955, No. 9). Wiesbaden 1955, p. 197.
  • Waldtraut Schrickel : Western European elements in the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age of Central Germany. Part I. Catalog. Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden, Volume 5, VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1957, pp. 32–33.