The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Preußlitz

Standing Stones

Fieldnotes

taken from the information board
Arbeitskreis Archäologie im Bernburger Land e.V.:

Die Sieben Steine (The Seven Stones)

Middle Neolithic - Middle Ages approx. 3,500 BC - around 1,500 AD

Opposite the Preußlitzer cemetery on the road to Cörmigk stands a group of six (originally seven) stones. The individual objects are between 0.5 and 1.3 m in size, consist of different types of rock (sandstone, lignite quartzite, granite, gneiss) and have no recognizable traces of working. Their current location is secondary. They are said to have originally been in different locations in the surrounding area. Details are unknown.

Around the stones entwines an old legend, according to which once an old renegade monk with his fiddle enticed three men and three women to dance and thus prevented them from going to church. Monks and dancers were petrified into stone as punishment.

Unfortunately, we can only speculate about the actual origin of the stones and their former significance due to the vague findings. The erection of large stones (so-called menhirs) was a typical phenomenon of prehistoric megalithic, which was widespread in much of Europe from the Middle Neolithic to the early Bronze Age. In the pre-Christian and early Christian periods, such stone settings were sometimes associated with places of religious worship. It would also be possible that they are medieval legal monuments in the sense of rebuke stones or judgment stones.

Finally, the stones may also be remnants of removed megalithic tombs. Neolithic burial mounds and megalithic tombs once existed in the area around Preußlitz. In this context, one must remember the Ilgensteiner Mühlberg, which has disappeared today. It was located about 300 meters east of the Sieben Steine also on the road to Cörmigk and was excavated in 1923 by the Köthener prehistorian Walter Götze (1879 - 1952).
Nucleus Posted by Nucleus
5th June 2019ce
Edited 5th June 2019ce

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