Eanjum Day 10.1

Location: Dokkum
Height: 1,6
Coordinates: 53,33 - 6
Weather: 15 °C and cloudy #checkin

Again. Doing a cycling tour Lauwersmeer, Dokkum and then in a big curve back to the Wadden Zee.

#fryslân #fakânsje #vacation #travel #cycle

Eanjum Day 8.2

About 50% into our circumcycling of the Lauwersmeer

Location: Zoutkamp
Height: 3,3
Coordinates: 53,34 - 6,29
Weather: 16 °C and mostly sunny #checkin

#fryslân #fakânsje #vacation #travel #cycle

Eanjum Day 8.1

Today the forecast is nice, so our circumcycling of the #Lauwersmeer is on.

Any tips for interesting stops on the way?

#fryslân #fakânsje #vacation #travel #cycle

We also passed through (E)anjum and did our shopping. Build on a terp, this village is at least 2000 years old. Anyway, the Michaëlkerk is from around the year 1000. There was some money there.

Presumably some of that money came from selling the young oxen south. The “Ochsenstrasse” wound its way south from Groningen, selling oxen along the way, until they reached Cologne and the trip ended.

#fryslân #fakânsje #vacation #travel #photo

A view from the house.

And Lauwersoog harbour.

#fryslân #fakânsje #vacation #travel #photo

The original idea, and why I thought it was a good one

About a year ago I stopped working and am now a pensioner. I looked for something to do that would, ideally, combine sport, photography and my interest for history.

Living, as I do, 45 minutes per bicycle from Cologne, I thought that medieval trading goods traded through Cologne might be a good topic. Their sources and markets could be visited by bicycle if close enough and by Deutschlandticket if not. Once there, I could take photographs to my hearts content. And as there are literally hundreds of possible goods, if we go from the 4th century AD Franks up to Napoleon in the 18th.

Also, I could just start. I have a computer, a camera and an ebike. Perfect.

Also, as a project it is somewhat sustainable for a pensioner. I can replace the ebike with public transport or car if cycling gets to difficult, I can keep researching and (at least) looking at pictures as long as the eyes will work.

Early success with Stoneware

I first looked at Rheinisches Steinzeug (Rhenian Stoneware) because I was familiar with the potteries of Frechen, an easy cycle trip away. Even though the potteries in Frechen moved to industrial wares (vitrified clay pipes for waste water, tiles and large scale wall cladding, …) the heritage got preserved because one of the industrialists gave himself a museum for his birthday, the Keramion.

Further research led to Siegburg, Raeren, Langerwehe and the Westerwald and …

And apart from some museums being closed for renovation:

• Langerwehe
• Hetjens, Düsseldorf (reopened in the meantime)

some other museums had much less on show then I thought, or had been led to believe by (admittedly late 19th century) sources.

I traveled, I took pictures, this looked easy, or at the very least doable.

There is even an international research project going on: Bartmann goes global

Hitting the wall

Sarwörter

Coming off that “high” I selected the Sarwörter as the next topic.

Sarwörter were armor (Harnisch) makers (originally chain mail makers) and they gave that name to their guild as well as a Gaffel ¹.

See also: The trade and history of the Sarwoerter in medieval Cologne

Where is the armor (Harnisch)

While the literature (see below) asserted quite confidently:

• armor (Harnisch) (and other weapons) were made in great number in Cologne
• armor (Harnisch) (and other weapons) were exported to hanseatic cities, to the Low Countries, to England, to Scandinavia …
• armor (Harnisch) were needed in large numbers in Cologne (and other European cities) where all male citizens were required to own armor (Harnisch) (and other weapons) to defend the city, if and when necessary
• the Sarwörter were an important part of Cologne politics for quite a few centuries

So far I have not been able to find a museum that exhibits Cologne armor (Harnisch) or chain mail.

Colognes production is overshadowed in the more popular literature by the production of the southern German cities of Augsburg and Nürnberg, who produced (also) high class pieces for nobles and royalty and are as such better represented in museums and collections. Much nicer to look at, then the workmanlike quality meant for the troops.

Where are the workshops

There are two challenges.

a) find the sources to pinpoint a workshop (let alone a particular source of iron). After all we are talking about broadly the time between 1100 and 1700. So quite a bit, and the references are sprinkled over many different sources.

b) Cologne has changed quite a bit since then and the city scape looks quite different - Secularisation and destruction of church property - Modernisation and the car centric city - The destruction during the Second World War

In Where are the pictures of the SARWOERTER you promised I traced the location of the Gaffel Hall of the Sarwörter Gaffel to his street junction.

Where did the raw materials come from

The obvious answer, for both is probably the Bergische Land which is a bit too large to photograph easily. There are also too many known mines for a quick trip. Further research is necessary. ²

That escalated quickly

Find some (more) sources

A trawl through Cologne City Libraries especially the section about Cologne found some good overviews, but nothing that would have been helpful to plan a cycling tour.

Online was much better, as a lot of literature up to the early 20th century has been digitized, getting the University library card opened up more, and now, being a “Gasthörer” access is very good.

The challenge is no longer finding stuff, but reading it all.

Oh sh’t

At the moment I have 703 source markdown files relevant to my “research”, ca 414 MB.

In hunting down relevant source material I early on stumbled on the Hansische Geschichtsverein. On their site they have almost everything they ever published since 1870 in digital form, or as links. This seemed really promising, since Cologne of course was a city of the Hanse.

But this also yielded almost two hundred books of several hundred pages, assorted (hundreds of) footnotes and so on.

If I wanted to do any cycling tours before my 100th birthday, reading each of the books in detail, making notes as I go, was not feasible, especially as most finds led to more books.

OBSIDIAN to the rescue

When I was still working, I used OBSIDIAN to keep track of my projects (I used to be a professional project wrangler for mumble mumble years), their deliverables, their actions, their minutes and my notes. All linked by simple tagging and made practical with Dataview (if you know, you approve).

So, I went back to OBSIDIAN and dropped in everything I could find. Which meant:

• Find a digital copy of a book (easy with the Hansische Geschichtsverein), translate into a markdown file and …
• Finding the digital copies got easier by getting a library card of Cologne University and then as of now, being a “Gasthörer”, which gives me full privileges in the library
• But then, > 700 source files with together 424 MB of text, phew

I tried various systems to make sense of it all, but it was extremely slow going.

What does done look like?

This is the most important question a project wrangler (or anyone, really) can ask of a task or project, and I had to remind myself that collecting and hoarding (all mine, mine) files was not the goal.

In this case the goal is:

• I have fun
• I learn something
• I ride my bicycle
• I take photos

The goal is not:

• becoming a specialist in Rhenish Stonewear, or Cologne weaponry, or …
• publishing academically original monographs
• turning into a caricature of a 19th century private scholar
• becoming a programmer

So some automation was required

An article about the “Karpathy LLM Wiki” caught my eye because the approach, if not necessarily the method, promised to bring some structure to my sources.

There even is an OBSIDIAN plug in that promises to turn your notes into a wiki.

In that wiki there would be two classes of notes, linked to each other, entities and concepts, which seemed ideal.

All my sources were either long out of copyright or open access, so I assume already in most KI models training materials.

Of course, turning ca 700 books into 3 to 5 (or more) entities and concepts first did nothing for my basic problem, I was just exchanging one collection of trees stopping me from seeing the forest with another, even larger, collection of trees.

I had to change the wiki structure to include a category person to be able to track professions or roles (eg being a Sarwörter or wine trader or …) and locations. At the moment the wiki has almost 950 persons, which are being enriched with their address, if any are documented. For this publications citing Schreinsbücher (medieval Cologne property registers) and guild documents are key. Also there are publications that cite “customs” (Akzise) records for cologne and list who was bringing what good into the city.

Also trade routes are now documented, there are some historical books on trade routes and a complete atlas of Hanseatic trade routes.

So the structure is, slowly, beginning to yield some results

Topic (eg Sarwörter)
- Person
	- Profession
		- Raw material (eg iron wire)
		- Product (eg chain mail)
		- Market in Cologne (if applicable, eg. Alter Markt)
		- Export market (eg. Groningen)
	- Adress
	- Time active (eg 1470)

³

Expect some pictures of modern houses. where medievall houses and workshops once stood. And pictures of maps, so many maps.

Next steps:

Product (eg chain mail)
- Raw material (eg. iron wire)
	- Sources
		- market (eg Frankfurt fair)
		- producer (eg a named mine)
	- Route to Cologne

Product (eg chain mail)
- Route to export market (eg Ochsenstraße (Groningen-Cologne))
- Export market (eg Groningen)

Then, because of LLM, each one has to be checked against sources while a (cycling) trip is planned. This is quite comfortable done with OBSIDIANs search function. ⁴

What next

1. Finalise finding the address of and scheduling tours to Sarwörter locations
2. Finding, confirming and mapping source locations for Sarwörter raw materials like iron, steel and iron wire, and eventually turn those into trips
3. Finding, confirming and mapping the end destinations of the armor (Harnisch) …
4. Repeat for
   • Swords
   • Lances
   • (Cross-)Bows
   • Gloves
   • Helmets
   • Wine
   • Cloth
   • Yarn
   • Silk
   • Leather(goods)
   • … this could take a while

---

1. Gaffel, see Wiktionary ↩︎

2. Where did I steal that? It sounds like a quote ↩︎

3. If you use OBSIDIAN, see ASCII Tree Generator ↩︎

4. Would anybody be interested in the Obsidian setup and OpenCode? ⁵ ↩︎

5. Or will I be shot on sight? ↩︎

Well, not so simple, unfortunately. As I mentioned before, the whole harnish making business is frightfully underrepresented. There are no easily accessible chunks. But. I had some, little, success.

The Gaffel of the Sarwörter etc. had their Gaffelhouse (meeting and admin) in the House “Zum großen Leopard” opposite the Minderbrüder monastery. A Gaffel in medieval Cologne was a group of guilds in one society that had a) representation on the city council, b) in case of war were going to defend a part of the city walls c) represented the guilds to traders, other guilds and the city d) enforced the rules of its guilds on applicable products and, finally, e) together with the guilds of the Gaffel provided basic social security.

Cologne Cathedral in the top right corner, Map Rheinhardt 1752

As we can see, the Minderbrüder (Minoriten) had quite some extensive holdings, founded on the area of the palace of the bishop of Liege (part of Church Provice of Cologne). In the east it is bounded by the Hohe Straße (the roman cardo maximus).

The House “Zum großen Leopard” was right opposite the southside of the church. And here is the photograph of the Gaffelhaus today.

The house was torn down in the 19th century to make room for the Ludwigstraße, today the MaxiMara shop is on the site, which reached into the road. Here is the only picture of the Gaffelhaus.

Enlarged out of this “Kreuter’sche Karte”, namely No 62

Some more about Franz Kreuter and his maps.

So, a start.

#historycycle #history #cologne #koeln

Why Cologne

As I’m living here, and as Cologne provides 2000 years of history, this is as good a place as any to look at as an extended retirement project.

Cologne is situated directly on the Rhine and has had harbour infrastructure since Roman times. Also Cologne lies at the point where the Lower Rhine transitions into the Middle Rhine which need quite different vessels to use.

Below Cologne the Aak(e) was the freight ship adapted to the Lower Rhine and for coastal shipping.

The Oberländer (Mainzer Lade) was a flat bottomed ship that could also drive up the shore. These ships traded up the Rhine to Mainz and beyond.

But the city also was at the crossing of various land based trade routes, for example the Via Regia connecting the Atlantic and the Cracow.

What trade

In any village, town or city trading will occur. If the city lies on a trading route, traders will pass. If it lays at a cross road, many traders will pass. If, like Cologne, it lies at the heart of many roads and a major river, where also for navigational reasons two different ship types are used for travel up stream versus down stream, you have opportunities

Also Cologne was an important administrative center. First as the capital of the Roman province of Lower Germany, as a bishops, later archbishops seat and the Center of a church province that included the sees of Cambrai, Lüttich, Minden, Münster, Osnabrück and Utrecht.

The Archbishop of Cologne also, at one time or another, as the Duke of Lothringen, the Chancellor of the HRE for Italy, an Elector of the HRE, the so called Erzstift which included large landholdings including much of Westphalia.

For a long time they were also the undisputed, later disputed, later titular, head of the city itself (again a slight simplification of several hundred years of development.

In any case these factors led to Cologne being one of the largest trading cities north of the Alps.

What is a Sarwoerter

Sar(w) is an old German word relating to or meaning armour. A Woerter, Worter or Woerter is someone who makes, in this case armour.

Specifically the Sarwoerters started out making mail and then, later, also plate armour.

The trade is documented in Cologne from 1396 onwards. In that year various guilds but also brotherhoods of merchants and similar were grouped into 24 Gaffeln, who (1) were who elected the city councillors (much simplification here) and (2) were responsible for the defence of a section of the city walls and (3) were part feasting and part mutual aid societies (much simplification here).

What this tells us, the trade needs to be (much) older, because in a “revolutionary” setting you don’t become the eponym of one of the new Gaffeln who will share power in the city, if you are small and new.

How long do they go back?

Who knows?

The oldest known Schreinsbuch entry (medieval land registry) has an Ezelin Loricator as a witness in 1150. His “colleague” Arnoldus receives half a house as dowry when he marries Agnes, the daughter of Gerardus some time before 1200.

In the late 13th century we find Adam, and (another?) Adam plus wives Gertrude and Reynerus with wives Elisabeth.

This shows at least 2 centuries before the Gaffel formation.

Known Sarwoerter

• Ezelin loricator (n. 1150)
• Arnoldus loricator (12. Jh.)
• Heinrich Gladiator (1200/1239)
• Adam loricator (1273–1283)
• mag. Reynerus (Reynardus) loricator (1291–1311)
• Gerardus Helmslegere (1298)
• Ec(k)bert Armificus (1334)
• Rutg. Sarwortere (1305)
• Reynorus Sarwortere (1311)
• Conr. Sarwortere (1335)
• Bertram Armificus (1343)
• Bertrami sarworter (magister, † v. 1358)
• Thilmannus sarworter (1358, Sohn des Bertrami)
• Heinrich von Aulstorp (1428, Harnischmacher)
• Heinrich van Ailstorp (Harnischmacher)
• Heinrich van Alfter, gen. Kruch (Harnischmacher, 1466)
• Johann van Droilshagen (Lehrling bei Harnischmacher Heinrich van Alfter, 1466)
• Simon van Wipperfürde (Harnischmacher, Kölner Bürger; seine Tochter Giertgin (*ca. 1385))
• Toenis van Mölheim (Harnischmacher, 1489, 1494)
• Der alde Neve (Sarwörter, 1473)
• Yelle (Sarwörter, 1473)
• Meister Mais (deutscher Harnischmacher, aufgenommen 1473)
• Peter van Alfter (Harnischmacher, 1473)
• Clais v. Ense
• Jan Kemper
• Jacob v. Wedich
• Evert v. Wedich
• Goedert Gryn der junge
• Heinrich v. Bercheym
• Johan Koelgijn
• Hans v. Berckervelde (Schwager eines Sarwörters)
• Joh. Wilh. Lohkamp (letzter Bannerherr)
• Thijs / Matthias Sarwoerter (Aachen)
• Johan Zylman (1397)
• Herman aen deym Maltzbuchil (1397)
• Joris Paffehase (1397)
• Henkyn swertveyger (1397)
• Heinrich Swertveger (1397)
• Konrad Swertveger (1397)
• Gierhart Franck (Schwertfeger, 1483)
• Berthold Harnischmacher (16. Jh., Tumultführer)
• Caspar Harnischmacher (16. Jh.)
• Damian der Harnischmacher (16. Jh.)
• Johann von Attendorn (Harnischmacher, Gaffelbote, 16. Jh.)
• Johann von Wermerskirchen (Harnischmacher, 16. Jh.)
• Christ. von Holte (Sarwörter-Amt, 15. Jh.)
• Heinr. von Rollenberg (Sarwörter-Amt, 15. Jh.)
• Glas Reyderade (Sarwörter-Amt)
• Mart. Reve (Sarwörter-Amt, 15. Jh.)
• Walter de Beche / de Besche (1665–1716): Hauptmann der Harnischmacher-Zunft, Ratsherr 1709–1715 für das Sarwörteramt
• Sebastian Honvalle (* 1675): Barbierer bei der Harnischmacher-Zunft
• Johann Josef Eichen (1748–1809): Bannerherr der Sarwörter, Kaufmann, Ratszugehörigkeit 1786–1797
• Benedikt Josef Wolter de Beche (1751–1831): Bannerherr der Sarwörter, Schreinsherr bei St. Columba, Laurenz und Martin, Ratszugehörigkeit 1786–1796

But what about the quest?

The quest was to identify places in or around Cologne, having to do with a traiding good, go there by cycle and take photos.

Places got identified, but, due to progress and of course the second world war, there are no historic buildings left to photograph. Even the part of the city walls that the Sarwoerter were responsible for, no longer stands.

I’ll do the trips anyway while I ponder a new research topic and collect armour collection museums to visit.

The start

www.zahr.koeln/2025/11/0…

So, how is my “research” going?

The answer is “perhaps” - new sources are going into my stash (Obsidian), information piles on, BUT, the goal remains elusive.

The goal remains, spent my retirement time cycling with my camera to places where trading goods of medieval Cologne had been produced, traded or used.

After the “success” of looking at Rhenish Stoneware I thought that medieaval harnesses might be a good next topic.

Oh my.

Getting the internet to even acknowledge an armour making industry in medieval Cologne was tricky. Mainly because the internet focuses on the flashy princely armour made in places like Augsburg and Nürnberg and ignores the workman like stuff, provided to troops in the 30 and 80 year wars.

Also the scholarly reception of armour and of specific guilds and trades seems to be sketchy. Here I’m open (desperate) for correction.

What we know:

• There is a guild of armour makers (Sarwörter)
• They are the naming guild of the Sarwörter Gaffel, one of 22, which are important parts of the constitutional reforms of 1396 in Cologne. A Gaffel sent elected representatives to the City Council, was responsible for the defence of a section of the city wall, …
• Cologne traded armour
  • in the City
  • in the Rhine and Maas Region
  • south, down the Rhine into France, Switzerland, …
  • north, up the Rhine into France, Netherlands, England, Skaninavia and the Baltics
  • etc.

But all that is not really cyclable or photographable

Thankfully @bookandswordblog@scholar.social helped with some sources, of which

• Pierre Terjanian, “The Armourers of Cologne: Organization and Export Markets of a Foremost European Armour-making Center (1391-1660),”
• Hermann Kellenbenz und Klara von Eyll eds., Zwei Jahrtausende Kölner Wirtschaft, Band I (Greven Verlag: Köln, 1975)

proved especially helpful.

The “Zwei Jahrtausende …” confirmed what I already knew, but also provided a few hundred suources for my overall “trading goods” search, but also for the harnesses. In the meantime I found a physical copy online for 7 € including shipping, so I’ll never be without it again, even when I get my loaner back to the library.

“The armourers …” went into details and also provided more sources, many of which were downloadable which is kind of ideal for Obsidian ;-)

I’m now more confident, that I can find places to cycle to and photograph.

So, thanks to @bookandswordblog@scholar.social and @mrundkvist@archaeo.social who made the connection

Where we went

We spent a week in Sachsen-Anhalt exploring the Neolithic monuments of the Himmelswege in the Halle (Saale) area.

We chose a hotel in Merseburg, which was centrally located for our trip.

In theory, the trip should have taken 4.5 hours, but in practice, it took longer—especially since we brought our bicycles..

Why we went

A few months ago, I discovered the himmelswege.de website while researching the Nebra Sky Disk. The site also introduced me to the Kreisgrabenanlage Pömmelte, which we had heard of, as well as Schönebeck and Goseck, which were new to us.

Since many of the sites appeared cyclable, we booked the hotel and set off.

The itinerary

The map

The yellow parts of the map are mountains.

Day 1 - Merseburg

We found a tactile city map. So I’ll contrast a few buildings with map & reality (well, photo)

St. Sixti

St Maximi

Dom Merseburg

Day 2

Kreisgrabenanlage Pömmelte

A ca 5000 year old wood circle, close to the confluence of Saale and Elbe.

Kreisgrabenanlage Pömmelte

Bad Dürrenberg

The longest historic salt works in Europe

In the middle of the spas park in 1932 the grave of a neolithic shaman and her child was found. Now in the Museum in Halle.

Gradierwerk Bad Dürrenberg

Bestattung von Bad Dürrenberg

www.landesmuseum-vorgeschichte.de/dauerauss…

Day 3

Arche Nebra

A museum, basically in the middle of nowhere, sits near the spot where the Nebra Sky Disk was found. In a film presentation, the symbolism on the disc is explained, including the importance for people in the Neolithicum. The disk shows how from observation you can figure out, using the position of the Pleiades and the moon, when spring starts and when autumn starts.

www.himmelswege.de/orte/arch…

Sonnenobservatorium Goseck

A 7,000-year-old sun observatory.

It looks much simpler than the Ringheiligtum Pömmelte we visited earlier this week. But, it is the oldest sun observatory yet found anywhere.

The observatory sits below the top of a hill. The view takes in a large valley, stretching from the earliest sunrise in the year to the latest sundown of the year. Today, this is all mostly fields. Back then, you would have looked just above the treetops.

sonnenobservatorium-goseck.info

Day 4 - Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte (Halle/Saale)

A very nice (smallish) museum, but very well made.

You start on the top floor with finds from about 400.000 years old from various cousins, including Erectus and Neanderthal and ending with Sapiens and the bronze age. Loads of finds. Rough stone tools, knapped stone tools, polished stone tools. The odd animal skeleton. The presentation is very good and the visitor leaves with a good and present impression of what life was like.

Himmelsscheibe front

Himmelsscheibe back

www.landesmuseum-vorgeschichte.de/en/

The first floor takes us from the beginning of the Iron Age to the Reformation.

Quite a short time compared to the floor above.

But because of the sheer number of objects and contexts this floor feels more condensed and “sped up”.

In short: There was trade with Rome, some served in the Roman Army, the Thuringians had their short lived kingdom, the Franks came, Christianity, Reformation, puh.

Day 5

Dolmengöttin Langeneichstädt

The last picture is the original in the Landesmuseum, see yesterday.

dolmengoettin.de

Eichstädter Warte

Same site as the Dolmengöttin, separated by a few meters and a few millennia

Medieval watchtower, build around 1000 CE by Heinrich I to watch for marauding Hungarians (there was more than the one tower, then)

Eichstädter Warte

A windmill on the way

We saw a few mill ruins, mostly Dutch-style mills; this was the only post mill.

Burg Querfurt

www.burg-querfurt.de/en/

Naumburg

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum…

Day 6

Bad Lauchstädt

This small spa was the summer holiday location for the court at Weimar, which explains why Goethe was seconded to help design the theater there and got to run it, as one of his jobs was theater director to the court.

Goethe

Naumburger Dom

Yesterday we managed to get here just after the cathedral closed. Today we got here in time to an open door for the town. The cathedral was way livelier than I like for photos. One of the things we looked at was the cathedral treasure vault under the cloister.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum…

West Choir, this includes the famous sculptures of the founders

East Choir

How we liked it

Cycling

Cycling on this trip was challenging. The weather was poor, and cycling infrastructure in the area is minimal. Many roads are cobblestone with no dedicated cycling paths, making for an uncomfortable ride—especially uphill.

We cycled through Merseburg, where our hotel was located, and rode through Halle with our bikes, though we drove there by car. Our visit to the Dolmengöttin was entirely by bicycle; on other days, we used the car.

Next time, we would leave the bicycles at home, not least because the bike rack increases fuel consumption.

Thoughts and conclusions

Today’s Sachsen-Anhalt (the bits we covered)

As a tourist, you can feel a bit unwelcome—not due to the locals, but because of the infrastructure. Finding something to drink, eat, or a place to sit can be difficult. Presumably, this is because the tourist season only starts in April; we may have been too early.

Many places to eat serve only kebab, which can become monotonous.

There are many well-preserved historic sites, but locating them can be tricky. We did not find a single source listing all of them.

The Neolithic finds are well-documented and linked on himmelswege.de, though addresses are sometimes missing.

Other sites—such as Naumburg Cathedral, Bad Dürrenberg Saltworks, Goethe Theater Bad Lauchstedt, and Burg Querfurt—are all impressive, but you need to know they exist.

Neolithic Sachsen-Anhalt

We focused mainly on the area south of the Elbe, west of the Saale, and north of the Unstrut. This region was significant in Neolithic times, with at least three major wooden henges discovered so far.

The Sonnenobservatorium Goseck, dating to around 5000 BCE, is the oldest known sun observatory in the world. It has been reconstructed and can be visited for free. Its simplicity belies its sophisticated purpose, which connects it to the Nebra Sky Disk.

There may be an older observatory somewhere, but locating it will be difficult, as only discolored postholes would remain.

Schönebeck (ca. 2150 BCE) was excavated and then reburied; it cannot be visited. While it is the youngest of the henges, its complexity lies between Goseck and Pömmelte.

Schönebeck

Nearby is the Ringheiligtum Pömmelte (ca. 2800 BCE), which has been reconstructed with a shop, additional information, and amenities like coffee and toilets.

This grand structure features round concrete blocks with information about sacrificial remains. It was not merely a religious site; evidence suggests it was used as a meeting point for a large area, with people coming from both sides of the Elbe. Some burials were also found here.

The other burials—the Dolmen of the Dolmengöttin and the burial of Bad Dürrenberg—are less impactful for visitors.

This leaves the Nebra Sky Disk. Its purpose is linked to the Sonnenobservatorium Goseck. Visiting the Arche Nebra and the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle provides extensive information about the disk. Either, or preferably both, is worth seeing.

Videos on the Landesmuseum site (German)

Overall

A cool trip. Next time don’t bring the bikes. Go a little bit later in the year when it is warmer and provision your day trips.