The Belchen system comprises five mountains with the name ''Belchen'' around the

tripoint A triple border, tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geography, geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or Administrative division, subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

that may have been used by the

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

as a

solar calendar A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicates the season or almost equivalently the apparent position of the Sun relative to the stars. The Gregorian calendar, widely accepted as a standard in the world, is an example of a solar calendar ...

. The term is an extension of the Belchen triangle. The mountains are: * Belchen, or Black Forest Belchen * Belchenflue, or Swiss Belchen *

Ballon d'Alsace The Ballon d'Alsace (; , ) (el. 1247 m.), sometimes also called the Alsatian Belchen to distinguish it from other mountains named " Belchen") is a mountain at the border of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comté. From its top, views include the ...

, or Alsatian Belchen *

Grand Ballon The Grand Ballon () or Great Belchen ( ; ) is the highest mountain of the Vosges, located northwest of Mulhouse, France. It is also the highest point of the Grand-Est French region. Name ''Grand Ballon'' means "great ound-toppedmountain" ...

, or Great Belchen *

Petit Ballon The Petit Ballon () or Little Belchen,Chevrier, Jean-François. ''From Basel – Herzog & de Meuron'', Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, p. 54. is, at 1272 m, one of the highest peaks of the Vosges Mountains in the department of Haut-Rhin, Alsace, in Fr ...

, or Little Belchen

Geographical description

The heart of the Belchen system is the southernmost mountain of the

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian and ) is a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and ...

, the

(''Elsässer Belchen'' or Alsatian Belchen, 1,247 metres). Seventy three kilometres due east is the Black Forest Belchen (''Schwarzwälder Belchen'', 1,414 metres), which is only 167 metres higher and over which the sun rises at the

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun appears directly above the equator, rather than to its north or south. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise directly east and set directly west. This occurs twice each year, arou ...

es, i.e. at the beginning of spring and autumn, as seen from Grand Ballon. Conversely, the sun sets over the Alsatian Belchen on these days when seen from the Black Forest Belchen. Viewed from the Alsatian Belchen at the time of the

summer solstice The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). The summer solstice is the day with the longest peri ...

, the sun rises over ''

'' (''Kleiner Belchen'' or Little Belchen, 1,272 metres), 27 kilometres away to the northeast. At the

winter solstice The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's geographical pole, poles reaches its maximum axial tilt, tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern Hemisphere, Northern and So ...

it rises over the '' Belchenflue'' (''Schweizer Belchen'' or Swiss Belchen, 1,099 metres), 88 kilometres to the southeast. Thus from the Alsatian Belchen the start of all four

astronomical season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and polar ...

s is defined. The region of the Belchen system is known today as the

Upper Rhine Upper Rhine ( ; ; kilometres 167 to 529 of the Rhine) is the section of the Rhine between the Middle Bridge, Basel, Middle Bridge in Basel, Switzerland, and the Rhine knee in Bingen am Rhein, Bingen, Germany. It is surrounded by the Upper Rhine P ...

, the ''Regio Basiliensis'', the ''Dreiland'' or ''RegioTriRhena''. File:Sommetduballond'alsace.jpg, Alsace Belchen File:Petit Ballon.JPG, Little Belchen File:Grand Ballon 2013.JPG, Great Belchen File:Belchen_1.JPG, Black Forest Belchen File:Belchen-Fluh.jpg, Swiss Belchen

References

* Walter Eichin, Andreas Bohnert: ''Belchensystem'', in ''Das Markgräfler Land'', 1985, Issue 2, pp. 176ff. ** ''Astronomisch-kalendarisches Ortungssystem'', in ''Jurablätter'', 5 May 1988 * Rolf d’Aujourd’hui: ''Das Belchensystem'',

Basler Zeitung ''Basler Zeitung'' (literally: "Basler Newspaper"), or ''BaZ'', is a Switzerland, Swiss German language, German-language regional daily newspaper, published in Basel. History and profile ''Basler Zeitung'' was created in 1977 through the merg ...

, 18 June 1992

External links

* Rolf d’Aujourd’hui:
Belchen
', Historic Lexicon of Switzerland, retrieved 20 May 2013 * Karl Rammstein
The Belchen Legend
13. Juni 2004, retrieved 20 May 2013 * Hannes Hanggi
''Ich will das System verankern''
(pdf; 844 kB), Basler Zeitung, 8 December 2007, retrieved 20 May 2013 * Gianni Mazzucchelli
Der Sonnenkalender von Rothenfluh - Das Belchen-System
(pdf; 9.5 MB), retrieved 20 May 2013

guajara.com, retrieved 20 May 2013
regbas.ch: Belchen Triangle explained, with illustration
* Reference a
archaeobasel.ch: ''Projekt Archäo-Geometrie – Belchendreieck''
(PDF; 160 kB); im Jahresbericht der Archäologischen Bodenforschung des Kantons Basel-Stadt 1993, incl. bibliography
Das magische Dreieck
SRF broadcast from the series
Mysterious Switzerland
{{Authority control Regions of Europe Upper Rhine Archaeoastronomy

Geographical description

See also

References

External links