Sunstone from Beckstedt

Beckstedt's sunstone

The Beckstedt Sun Stone is an approximately 0.9 m high plate made of reddish red granite in the shape of a coat of arms .

Beckstedt, which belongs to Colnrade, is located in the Oldenburg district , in the Wildeshauser Geest about nine kilometers southeast of Wildeshausen in Lower Saxony . There is a very good replica of the sunstone at the “Beckstedt” bus stop. The place Colnrade has the stone in the coat of arms.

Colnrade coat of arms with the sunstone

On the flat front side, 11 concentric circles are worked around a middle bowl. The stone was found in the foundation in 1923 when a 17th century farmhouse was demolished. It was sold and set up in a rock garden, where local researcher Hans Müller-Brauel discovered it. In 1955 the sunstone went to the later Ludwig Roselius Museum in Bremen . After taking over the collection, it has been in the Archaeological State Museum Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig since 2004 .

There are no findings that allow the unusual stone to be classified. There are similar representations on Bronze Age finds and rock carvings in southern Scandinavia . On the British Isles you come across this motif in rock carvings ( cup-and-ring markings ) and in megalithic systems . The representations may have had a meaning in the context of the Bronze Age cult.

See also

• Sunstone from Harpstedt
• Sunstone from Horsten
• Klokkestenen

Web links

• Description in "Fascination Archeology" , accessed on January 4, 2020
• History from Colnrade , accessed January 5, 2020

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. 226.
• HA Lauer: In: State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory (ed.): Archaeological monuments between Weser and Ems . Oldenburg research. New series, Volume 13, Isensee, Oldenburg 2000 p. 364.
• Guide to prehistoric and prehistoric monuments . Volume 2, Bremen Verden Hoya. Mainz 1965 (p. 82 ff the Harpstedt section, p. 89 Beckstedt)
• Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The sun stones from Beckstedt, Harpstedt and Horsten . Pp. 19–21, in: If stones could talk , Volume III, Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1995, ISBN 3-7842-0515-1 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 50 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 30 ′ 7 ″  E