Obelisk
Photo Flocci Nivis · CC BY 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Obelisk is a stele in Saarbrücken, Germany. It lies at 49.2116° N, 6.9647° E.
Catalogue recordSources and licences
Article
Obelisk
ContextSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
The Atlas's German and American "steles" are mostly modern memorials, and have nothing to do with prehistoric stone monuments. A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected as a monument, and its surface often carries text, ornament, or both. Steles are made for many reasons: as grave markers, as boundary markers and government notices, and as memorials, including to battles. The regional background, “Modern commemorative steles”, is given below.
Dating
No date has been published for this site.
Setting
No other recorded monument lies within 10 km. The nearest is Spellenstein, 10.7 km to the north-east. In Saarbrücken, Germany, 1 of the 1 recorded monuments are of this type.
The nearest recorded monuments are Spellenstein (10.7 km north-east, menhir); Gollenstein (21.0 km east, menhir); Hügel Gloria Romanorum (26.0 km east, megalithic mound); Twelve Apostles Stone (41.0 km south-east, menhir).
ProtectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
No heritage designation is recorded for the site.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Modern commemorative steles
The Atlas's German and American "steles" are mostly modern memorials, and have nothing to do with prehistoric stone monuments. A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected as a monument, and its surface often carries text, ornament, or both. Steles are made for many reasons: as grave markers, as boundary markers and government notices, and as memorials, including to battles.
The tradition of the commemorative stele is old and has never stopped. The Gwanggaeto Stele in China, erected in 414 CE by Jangsu in honour of his father Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo, is the largest engraved stele in the world, and is one of the major sources for the history of Goguryeo. The Armenian khachkar, a carved memorial cross-stone of medieval Christian Armenian art, is a related tradition.
The German records are steles that commemorate historical events or the victims of war. The Atlas keeps them because the registers list them as stone monuments, but it marks them as modern.
For such monuments the date on the stone is easy to read, and they say nothing about prehistory. Stelae were also used by the Greeks and Romans as government notices and as boundary markers, and khachkars, with their symbolism and craftsmanship, were inscribed in 2010 on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which shows that the carving of memorial stones is a living craft.
When visiting, read the inscription, which tells you in a sentence why the monument was raised.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Stele, Wikipedia: Khachkar, Wikipedia: Gwanggaeto Stele · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photographs
5 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 49°12′42″ N, 6°57′53″ EFor a GPS or map app: 49.21157, 6.96475
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.
Spellenstein2800–1800 BCEPhoto: No machine-readable author provided. Kh80 assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0
Gollenstein2800–1800 BCE
Hügel Gloria Romanorum3500–500 BCE
Twelve Apostles Stone2800–1800 BCE
Menhir von Martinshöhe2800–1800 BCE
Menhir von Mittelbrunn2800–1800 BCE- Menhir (standing stone)Menhir von Pirmasens2800–1800 BCE
Menhir I von Bann3500–2500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q110612045wikidata.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Compiled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a regional background article based on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Wikidata Q110612045CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0