BBefore going into the very early history, there is one more chapter of the more recent one. A man from the group of visitors wants to know what all the green shards on the path were used for. According to Waldemar Liedecke, they probably came from all the green beer bottles from the GDR era, the contents of which were always thrown away because beer in green was generally considered bad. “That’s right,” says an old woman in passing. But not entirely true. Yes, about the beer, but the shards, whether old or new, are just a strange decoration. “When the sun falls on them,” says Mr. Liedecke, “they glitter splendidly and show where it’s going.”
We are on the way in – yes, where now? “In the German Stonehenge. That just sounds more exciting than: in the roundabout of Pömmelte-Zackmünde,” says Waldemar Liedecke, the honorary guide, who makes the next hour a pleasure with his mixture of expertise, speculation and humor. And the comparison is by no means wrong. Both are Ring Hallows. Both, the one in England and the one here in the Salzland district south-east of Magdeburg, were created around the same time. Both are about the same size and were built by the same race of people, the so-called Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures.
A sanctuary of wood and earth
A view from the wooden lookout tower helps to understand the complex. In the midst of the flat grain fields of the Magdeburg Börde, seven concentric circles can be seen diagonally below, laid out around a large open space. Three of the rings consist of three meter high, densely packed tree trunks, the others in between of pits, ditches and walls. One hundred and fifteen meters is the diameter of the whole.
The Ring Sanctuary as seen by the birds and the gods: 1200 locust tree trunks were used for its reconstruction.
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Image: Picture Alliance
This structure was a sanctuary of wood and earth, a place associated with the sun. Their course determined the life of the farmers, through openings in the palisades one could watch them rise and set on some days. So people made regular pilgrimages here to make sacrifices to the mysterious, radiant gods and possibly celebrate properly at the same time.
Carved skulls as guards
In 1991, when the site was discovered, there was only flat land. Only a few unusual, round regularities in the ground caught the eye on the aerial photos. In 2005, digging began and discovered shafts, house plans and hundreds of holes where beams must have been stuck. The system was reconstructed by 2016, and around twelve hundred robinia trunks are said to have been installed.
And little by little, the scientists also managed to answer some fundamental questions: When? Who? As? Where from? Why? But the answers are all too often preceded by pure speculation. The complex was built around 2300 BC, after which it was used for around three centuries, that much is certain. At that time, semi-nomads from the eastern steppes had immigrated to Central Europe, people who decorated mugs with Corded Ware and had already figured out how to cast a certain metal: the Bronze Age replaced the Neolithic Age. A new era began.
