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Founded: 3500-3200 BCCategory: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in Germany
Historical period: Paleolithic to Neolithic Period (Germany)
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The Lancken-Granitz dolmens are a group of seven megalith tombs in the Lancken-Granitz municipality on Rügen. Erected during the middle Neolithic, when they were used by the Funnelbeaker culture, at least some were in use until the early Bronze Age. Three of them are encircled by solitary rocks forming either rectangles or a stone circle, one has a solitary 'guardian stone' on its eastern side.
The dolmens were constructed from glacial erratic boulders and red sandstone. In part subdivided into up to four compartments as common for the region, one dolmen showed a subdivision into six such compartments, which is an unusually high number. When the tombs were archaeologically assessed in 1969, Stone and Bronze Age funerary goods were retrieved, including flint hatches, stone axes, amber pearls, bronze needles and necklaces as well as an abundance of arrowheads and pottery.
The dolmens are part of a series built between 3,500 and 3,200 BC, during the Neolithic. As of 2001, about 400 of those are preserved in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 55 of which are located on the isle of Rügen. Initially their number had been much larger, but many were destroyed when their boulders were used for church, housing and street construction since the Middle Ages. In the 20th century, local teacher Friedrich-Wilhelm Furthmann and his wife preserved the dolmens in the Lancken-Granitz and Burtevitz area, before they were excavated by archaeologist Ewald Schuldt in 1969 and immediately thereafter restored for touristic use. This was part of a series of 106 excavations conducted by Schuldt's team on megalith sites in present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between 1964 and 1972.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.