Menhir from Weilheim
The menhir of Weilheim , also called the Weilheimer stele , is a menhir from the early Bronze Age discovered in the ground in 1985 in the Weilheim district of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg .
Find situation
During the construction of a house on Herrenweg, several parts of what was originally a 4.5 m high, 80–90 cm thick monolith made of stone sandstone were found in a sewer ditch . The fragments were about 1.5 m deep, in a dark, clayey layer, probably a former soil surface. The covering earth material was washed away from the Rammert ridge to the south . The sandstone also comes from there .
description
On the front of the menhir five dagger blades with short shafts are depicted in bas-relief , so-called stick daggers . Next to it is an oval disk (sun) and a hanging crescent moon. The relief was carved out of the surface of the stone and partially ground down. On the back of the menhir, cup-shaped depressions and grooves appear in a seemingly random arrangement .
context
The decoration of the menhir of Weilheim is almost without counterpart north of the Alps , while related pieces, statues or figure menhirs have been found south of the Alps . Due to the dagger motif, the menhir can be dated back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. To be dated. Staff daggers served as symbols of authority or dignity. The so-called Neckar Group , an early Bronze Age regional group in the area of Baden-Württemberg, which Rüdiger Krause named in 1988 , is responsible for the installation .
An exact replica was erected as an archaeological monument about 50 m east of the site at a fork in the path on Herrenweg just outside of Weilheim. The original is in the Archaeological State Museum Baden-Württemberg in Konstanz.
literature
- Johannes Groht: Menhirs in Germany. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, Halle (Saale) 2013, ISBN 978-3-943904-18-5 , p. 93.
- Martin Kuckenberg: Places of worship and sacrificial sites in Germany - From the Stone Age to the Middle Ages . Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-2076-6 , p. 34
- Hartmann Reim: The early Bronze Age menhir from Weilheim, City of Tübingen . In: J. Reischmann (Ed.): 900 years of Weilheim. A home book . Administrative office Tübingen-Weilheim, Tübingen 1991, p. 55 ff.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 29 '33.7 " N , 9 ° 1' 50.4" E