Zöschen

Zöschen is a village and a former municipality in the district Saalekreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 31 December 2009, it is part of the town Leuna.

Züschen (megalithic tomb)

The Züschen tomb (German: Steinkammergrab von Züschen, sometimes also Lohne-Züschen) is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist (hessisch-westfälische Steinkiste), it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the late 4th millennium BC (and possibly remaining in use until the early 3rd), it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture. The presence of incised carvings, comparable to prehistoric rock art elsewhere in Europe, is a striking feature of Wartberg culture tombs, known so far only from Züschen and from tomb I at Warburg.

Discovery and excavation

The tomb was accidentally discovered in 1894. For a number of years, a row of sandstone blocks had impeded the local miller from ploughing one of his fields. When he decided to remove them, Rudolf Gelpke, an inspector from nearby Garvensburg castle, noted the unusual presence of sandstone in the area of a basalt outcrop. On a visit to the site, he recognised it as a prehistoric monument consisting of two parallel rows of regularly shaped vertical slabs. Gelpke erroneously associated the monument with the Chatti, a local Iron Age tribe. He convinced the owner of the field to remove soil only from the ends of the row. This revealed bones and pottery sherds. At this point, Wilhelm von Garvens, owner of the Garvensburg, was notified. He, in turn, informed the antiquarian Baron Felix von und zu Gilsa. After Gilsa's scrutiny, the tomb was excavated, still in 1894, by Johannes Boehlau, former director of the State Museum at Kassel. Further excavations took place in 1939 and 1949, under the direction of O. Uenze of the archaeological service of Marburg.

Winterberg

Winterberg is a town in the Hochsauerland district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and a major winter sport resort of the Wintersport ArenaSauerland.

Geography

Winterberg is located in the middle of the Sauerland, at the source of the Ruhr and Lenne river.

Neighbouring municipalities

Division of the town

After the local government reforms of 1975 Winterberg consists of 15 districts:

International relations

Winterberg is twinned with:

Le Touquet (France) -- since 1974

Rijssen (Netherlands) -- since 1974

Rixensart (Belgium) -- since 1989

Oberhof (Germany) -- since 1990

History

Town Origin

Winterberg was declared a city by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden (1238-’61) about 1270. The foundation of the city of Winterberg was presumably carried out together with the cloister in Küstelberg. Here indicates a document of 1276 in which the rights are regulated in the town between archbishop and cloister. In this document a church is mentioned in Winterberg whose precursor presumably goes back till the time about 1225. The city fortification seems to have granted in the 14th century first only very much restricted protection. The count von Waldeck conquered the town 1321. About 1357 Winterberg became destroyed by Gottfried IV. von Arnsberg during his war with the Cologne archbishop Wilhelm von Gennep . For the reconstruction the archbishop granted an at first ten-year-old tax freedom. This was extended in 1370 and 1374 in each case by other five years. At this time Winterberg owned the same town right like Hallenberg. Winterberg was a member of the Hanseatic League from the 13th until the 17th century. The town was in the middle of two trade roads, Heidenstrasse between Cologne and Kassel and Heerstrasse between Frankfurt am Main and Soest. The bad agricultural conditions led to the fact that trade played a central role as a life basis of the town.