Externsteine - The Extern Stones in Germany

Recently I was invited to give a lecture on the Extern Stones (Externsteine) in Germany. The lecture took place at the annual conference of the German "Arbeits- und Forschungskreis Walther Machalett e.V.", May 4-8, 2005, in Horn-Bad Meinberg.



Horn Bad-Meinberg is not coincidentally also the location of the Extern Stones, which are pictured on the admission ticket seen above.

See also e.g. Sacred Sites for some information in English and a couple of photos of the Externsteine.

If one plugs the search term - Externsteine - into Yahoo or Google or one of the other search engines under their Image Search one will see thousands of photographs of these gigantic Ex-Stern-Steine or "Egge-Stern-Steine" (Star Stones in Egge Forest), natural limestones which reach up to 38 meters (125 feet) high and which (in my opinion) have large manmade carvings on them representing not only the stars but also the original gods of the German pantheon.

In my opinon, Stone 11 of the Externsteine is the Throne of Odin (Wotan) in Nordic legend, marking the stars at heaven's center, while Stones 1 through 5 mark the stars of the ecliptic (the modern Zodiac), each corresponding to an ancient Germanic viz. Norse god.

My lecture (in German) is available as part of a CD-ROM published under the name "Frühgeschichtliche Astronomie in Norddeutschland", Schriftliche Fassung der Referate, gehalten auf der 39. Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises Walther Machalett am 06. und 07. Mai 2005 in Horn/Externsteine, Price 20 Euro, Design by Stefan Hövel.

The CD-ROM content (only available in the German language) is:

1. Sternensteine – Darstellungen frühgeschichtlicher Astronomie am Beispiel der Externsteine (Andis Kaulins) [Star Stones - Prehistoric Astronomy on the Example of the Extern Stones]
2. Der westfälische Bodenhimmel (Gert Meier) [The Sky Mirrored on Earth in Westphalia]
3. Das megalithische Blankenburg-System (Christina Linger / Kai-Uwe Uebner) [The Megalithic System at Blankenburg]
4. Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra (Andis Kaulins) [The Nebra Sky Disc]
5. Norddeutschland und Ägypten – astronomische und kultische
Beziehungen in der Frühzeit (Gert Meier) [North Germany and Egypt - Astronomical and Cultic Relations in the Prehistoric and Early Historic Period]
6. Vitae [Resumes of the Authors]

Anyone who is interested in obtaining the CD-ROM should write to
Dr. Gert Meier
Im Linder Bruch 38
51147 Koeln (Porz-Lind)
Germany.

Koeln is the German spelling for the city of Cologne. Dr. Meier is on the Board of Directors of the Machalett Group, which concentrates on the study of German history and is one of the main groups in Germany for such studies. My lecture, for example, was attended by about 100 persons.

I will be getting around some time in the near future to translating my lecture (about 50 pages) into English, but this will be a while down the road yet, as time is always short.