Menhir (standing stone)The Bronze Age
Hackpfüffel menhir
Also known asLanger Stein
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo Aschroet · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Hackpfüffel menhir, also called the Langer Stein (long stone), is a standing stone in Hackpfüffel, a district of Brücken-Hackpfüffel in the Landkreis Mansfeld-Südharz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The catalogue record gives a typological estimate of 2800 to 1800 BCE.
The stone is a slab of yellowish sandstone 200 cm high that was moved in 1920 to stand in front of the village church as a war memorial.
Read on Wikipedia1 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Hackpfüffel menhir
The menhir is made of yellowish sandstone and measures 200 cm in height, 20 cm in width and 60 cm in depth.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir is made of yellowish sandstone and measures 200 cm in height, 20 cm in width and 60 cm in depth. It is slab-shaped and ends in a wedge-shaped point. Since 1920 a metal plaque bearing the names of the village's dead of the First World War has been fixed to one broad face.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
The stone originally stood on a plot named Steinfleck, near the former place of judgement. In 1920 it was moved to the front of the church of Hackpfüffel and used as a memorial to those who fell in the First World War.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
The only finds known from the surroundings of the stone are remains of the Migration Period.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Central and southern European menhirs
Outside the Atlantic fringe, menhirs also occur across central and southern Europe. In the Czech Republic there are about 40 real menhirs and dozens of stones that could also be menhirs, and others have been erected recently. The largest real menhir is Kamenný pastýř, the "stony shepherd", near Klobuky, 3.3 metres high; the Czech menhirs are probably the last outcrop of a tradition that ran across northern Germany. Some of the Czech stones in the Atlas may be natural boulders.
Italy has its most famous menhirs in Sardinia, where at least 332 standing stones can be seen. They include elaborate "statue-menhirs" that show a human face at the top and gendered symbols on the flat front; over a hundred of this standardised type have been found, mostly around the village of Laconi. In the Sardinian language they are called perdas fittas or perdas lungas. In Switzerland, in the canton of Vaud, several menhirs form linear patterns at Clendy in Yverdon-les-Bains, and date back to the third millennium BCE.
A statue menhir is a carved standing stone of the later European Neolithic, in which a slab or pillar has a stylised human figure cut into it, sometimes with hints of clothing or weapons. They are most commonly found in southern and western France, Catalonia, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy and the Alps.
Menhirs are usually difficult to date, and those without excavation can only be given a broad range. A stone's present position is not always its original one.
When visiting, check whether a stone stands in its original position and look for signs of shaping.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: List of menhirs, Wikipedia: Statue menhir · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 51°25′13″ N, 11°12′09″ EFor a GPS or map app: 51.42024, 11.20238
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q22693013wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Menhir Hackpfüffel - 3.jpgAschroetCC0
- Menhir Hackpfüffel - 2.jpgAschroetCC0
- Menhir Hackpfüffel - 1.jpgAschroetCC0
- Menhir Hackpfüffel - 4.jpgAschroetCC0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Menhir von Hackpfüffel" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von HackpfüffelCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q22693013CC0