Sacrificial Stone (Melzingen)
| Sacrificial stone | |||
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 The Melzingen sacrificial stone |
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| Coordinates | 52 ° 59 '38.5 " N , 10 ° 27' 21.5" E | ||
| place | Schwienau , Uelzen district , Lower Saxony , Germany | ||
The sacrificial stone is a prehistoric grooved stone and a possible menhir near Melzingen , a district of Schwienau in the Uelzen district , Lower Saxony .
location
The stone is located southeast of Melzingen, 85 m south of the road to Immenhof in a field. There is a sign on the road and an information board on the stone itself.
description
The sacrificial stone is broad and rounded in shape and lies in an approximately east-west direction on the field. It is made of gray granite and is 2.2 m long, 1.8 m wide and 1.14 m thick. At the western end there is a deep groove that runs around half of the stone. It has a width of 10 cm and a depth of 11 cm.
During excavations under the direction of Wolfgang Dietrich Asmus between 1954 and 1957, it was found that the sacrificial stone lay on a rolling stone pavement in the center of a depression 30 m long and 21 m wide. The hollow was originally probably surrounded by a flat earth wall. A pit 0.5 m deep was found at the eastern end of the stone. Presumably it was a standing pit, with which the stone could be referred to as an originally upright standing menhir.
Several finds were made in the hollow around the stone. These include a hatchet from flint , an ax of rock, a hatchet in bronze and two unprocessed stones that resemble naturally to hatchets. The finds show that the stone dates from the Neolithic around 2500 BC. Until the Iron Age around 600 BC. Was visited. Ten times higher phosphate values were found in the soil directly on the stone than in the surrounding area. Asmus attributed this to the making of offerings. The stone is therefore to be regarded as a regularly visited cult site .
The stone in regional legends
The name sacrificial stone goes back to the modern popular belief that blood sacrifices were performed at this point. According to a legend , the moss that grows around the stone smells of blood. The water in the pond is said to have once been colored red. According to another legend, treasure is said to be buried under the stone.
literature
- Wolfgang Dietrich Asmus : Investigation of the Stone-Bronze Age "sacrificial stone" from Melzingen, Kr. Uelzen. In: Germania. Volume 36, 1958, pp. 179-180.
- Gisela Graichen : The cult place book. A guide to old sacrificial sites, shrines and places of worship in Germany. Hamburg 1990, p. 239.
- Johannes Groht : Menhirs in Germany. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, Halle (Saale) 2013, ISBN 978-3-943904-18-5 , pp. 197, 231-232.
- Wolfgang Korn : Megalithic Cultures. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 107-108.
- Friedrich Laux : The "sacrificial stone" from Melzingen, Gem. Schwienau, Ldkr. Uelzen. In: Ralf Busch (ed.): Place of sacrifice and sanctuary. Cult of the past in Northern Germany. Neumünster 2000, pp. 78-80.
- Johannes Heinrich Müller : Pre-Christian monuments of the Laddrostei districts Lüneburg and Osnabrück in the Kingdom of Hanover. In: Journal of the Historical Association for Lower Saxony. 1864, pp. 262-263.
- Pascale B. Richter : The sacrificial stone of Melzingen, district of Uelzen. In: The customer. NF Volume 47, 1996, pp. 409-434.
- Detlef Schünemann : News from grooved and gutter stones. Attempt to form groups based on exact profile measurements. In: The customer. NF Volume 43, 1992, 76.
Web links
- The Megalithic Portal: Melzingen sacrificial stone
- strahlen.org: Sacrificial Stone Melzingen, Schwienau, Uelzen