The Externsteine — the 'Germanic Stonehenge' that wasn't

OVERVIEW

The Externsteine are a tor of tall, narrow sandstone columns rising abruptly from wooded hills near Horn-Bad Meinberg in the Lippe district. Rock I holds a man-made grotto of three chambers, with an inscription of 1115 recording the consecration of an altar; outside is the Descent from the Cross relief, dated by art historians to about 1160–1170 and the oldest monumental rock relief north of the Alps. A 'high chamber' cut into the top of rock II has an apse with a circular window and an altar; beside the pond is a rock-cut tomb, an arcosolium.

HISTORY

Nomadic hunters sheltered here around 10,000 BC. Excavations show use from the late 10th to the 15th century: a hermitage and chapel under Abdinghof Abbey in Paderborn, with hermits named in 1385 and 1469; the relief and tomb may have been a copy of the Holy Sepulchre for pilgrims who could not reach Jerusalem. In 1564 Hermann Hamelmann claimed, on authorities that cannot now be identified, that Charlemagne had turned a pagan idol here into an altar; the 19th-century amateur Schierenberg identified it with the Saxon Irminsul. From the 1920s Wilhelm Teudt popularised the stones as the 'Germanic Stonehenge', a Saxon shrine and sun observatory. Under the Nazis an 'Externsteine Foundation' with Heinrich Himmler as president was set up in 1933 and the SS Ahnenerbe took an interest; Teudt's 1934–35 excavation found nothing of the kind, and the SS used Serbian prisoners of war on his 'sacred grove'.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

A circular hole above the altar stone in the high chamber has been said to face the summer-solstice sunrise; but no archaeological evidence shows any use of the site between the Upper Palaeolithic and the Carolingian period, and the finds from the 1930s are either Mesolithic or medieval. The stones remain a draw for neo-pagans, 'esotericists, druids and dowsers' and nationalist movements; solstice and Walpurgis Night gatherings grew to more than 3,500 people by the late 2000s, and in 2010 camping, alcohol and open fires were banned on the site.

VISITING

Open as a nature reserve; the Hermannsweg long-distance trail passes through the stones.