Menhir (standing stone)The Bronze Age
Monolith (Ingelheim)
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo Nixnubix · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Monolith (Ingelheim), also known as the Menhir von Wackernheim, is a menhir, or standing stone, lying between Nieder-Ingelheim and Wackernheim, two districts of Ingelheim am Rhein in the Landkreis Mainz-Bingen in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. The catalogue record gives a typological estimate for its date of 2800 to 1800 BCE.
The stone is made of limestone and stands about 160 cm high. It was found while the ground was being ploughed and now stands at the nearby Haxthäuser Hof.
Read on Wikipedia2 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
Monolith (Ingelheim)
The closest settlement is Wackernheim, which lies to the north-east, but both the find spot and the present location belong to Nieder-Ingelheim.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
The stone was found in 2003 during ploughing and was set up at the nearby Haxthäuser Hof. The closest settlement is Wackernheim, which lies to the north-east, but both the find spot and the present location belong to Nieder-Ingelheim.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir is of limestone and has a height of about 160 cm; no figures are available for its width or depth. The stone is slab-shaped and slightly curved, and it ends in an oblique point. Its surface is irregular, and slight traces of working can be seen on one narrow side.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Menhir von WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
Outside the Atlantic fringe, menhirs also occur across central and southern Europe. In the Czech Republic there are about 40 real menhirs, and the largest, Kamenný pastýř (the stony shepherd), near Klobuky, is 3.3 metres high. In Sardinia at least 332 standing stones can be seen, including elaborate statue-menhirs that show a human face at the top. These regional parallels are background only and say nothing specific about the stone at Ingelheim.
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
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 2003
Der Stein wurde 2003 beim Pflügen gefunden und auf dem nahe gelegenen Haxthäuser Hof aufgestellt.
Source
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
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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
- 49°58′37″ N, 8°03′40″ EFor a GPS or map app: 49.97700, 8.06100
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.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q53580046wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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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 Wackernheim" (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 WackernheimCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q53580046CC0