Twelve Apostles (Ahlhorn)

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Twelve Apostles Apostle stones
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Twelve Apostles (Ahlhorn) (Lower Saxony)
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Coordinates 52 ° 55 '31.6 "  N , 8 ° 8' 54.5"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 55 '31.6 "  N , 8 ° 8' 54.5"  E
place Großenkneten OT Ahlhorn , Oldenburg district , Lower Saxony , Germany

The Twelve Apostles (also called Apostelsteine ) are a prehistoric menhir complex near Ahlhorn , a district of Großenkneten in the district of Oldenburg , Lower Saxony .

location

The stones are located northwest of Ahlhorn near the Ahlhorn fish ponds, directly on a path.

description

The entire system has an extension of 70 m in a northeast-southwest and 24 m in a northwest-southeast direction. It is said to have originally consisted of 16 stones, of which only 13 are preserved today. When the fish ponds were created, a path and a ditch were created in 1922, which lead through the southern part of the complex, which seriously affected it. At least one stone was sunk back then.

The stones are partly columnar, partly rounded and all no longer stand upright. All are made of reddish granite . The largest stone is 2.5 m long, 1.8 m wide and 0.75 m thick. The stones were originally arranged in two circles of different sizes. A single stone stood a little to the northeast of it. According to Karl Michaelsen, the axis from the centers of the two circles to the individual stone originally pointed with only minimal deviation to the point of rise of the sun at the summer solstice . Michaelsen's interpretation of the complex as a prehistoric calendar is difficult to verify. On the one hand, he carried out his investigation over 30 years after the system was damaged by the construction of the path and the ditch and only made a sketch of the location of the stones. On the other hand, the stones are said to have been partially repositioned during clearing-up work after a storm in 1972.

literature

  • Johannes Groht : Menhirs in Germany. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, Halle (Saale) 2013, ISBN 978-3-943904-18-5 , pp. 218–220, 225.
  • Karl Michaelsen : The apostle stones. Calendar stones of the past. In: Blockhausbrief. Volume 3, 1958, pp. 7-11.

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