Menhir of Hohenleina

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The Menhir von Hohenleina , also called Menhir von Krostitz or Die Steinerne Frau , was a prehistoric menhir near Hohenleina , a district of Krostitz in the district of Northern Saxony . The stone was blown up around 1850. The fragments were installed in the Krostitzer brewery .

location

The menhir was at the southeast corner of the intersection of the road from Hohenleina to Priester with the road from Delitzsch to Eilenburg . The fields in the vicinity of the stone were called "stone fields".

description

The menhir was an erect erratic block of irregular shape. It was 137 cm high. No information is available about the material. His figure is said to have reminded of a woman with a basket on her back. The front apparently had an artificial notch in the form of a key ring. A more precise chronological classification of the menhir is not possible, as no finds are known from its immediate vicinity.

The menhir in regional sagas

A legend is entwined around the stone , which is related to its shape: According to this, a baker's wife is said to have secretly fetched sand from a pit at a time of high prices in order to stretch the flour for her bread. Since she also did this on a Sunday, she was turned to stone as a punishment. According to a variant of this legend, the woman is said to have denied her act and swore that she should turn to stone if she should have stretched her bread, which then happened promptly.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings and the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Volume 1). Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, p. 71.
  • Johannes Felix , Max Näbe : About relationships of stone monuments and erratic blocks to cult, to legends and folk customs. In: Meeting reports of the Natural Research Society in Leipzig. Volume 42, 1915, p. 9.
  • 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. 187.
  • Waldtraut Schrickel : Western European elements in the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age of Central Germany. Part 1. Catalog Leipzig 1957, p. 72.