Nobbin is a village in the municipality of

Putgarten Putgarten is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The municipality is managed by the '' Amt'' of Nord-Rügen with its seat in Sagard. Putgarten is the northernmost municipality in the state of Me ...

on the

Wittow Wittow is the northernmost peninsula of the island of Rügen. Wittow was a separate island until the High Middle Ages, but since then has been connected to the Jasmund peninsula of Rügen by the Schaabe spit. Wittow is most famous for Cape Ark ...

peninsula on the German

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

island of

Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...

. The village, comprising just a few houses, lies between the road from

Altenkirchen Altenkirchen () is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, capital of the Altenkirchen (district), district of Altenkirchen. It is located approximately 40 km east of Bonn and 50 km north of Koblenz. Altenkirchen is the seat of the ' ...

to Arkona and the bay of

Tromper Wiek The Tromper Wiek is a bay on the Baltic Sea between the peninsulas of Wittow and Jasmund on the island of Rügen in northeast Germany.''Die General Karte No. 1 – Schwerin-Rostock-Rügen'', 1:200,000 scale, Mairs Geographische Verlag/Falk Verlag, ...

. As a result of its attractive location between Cape Arkona and the broad, over 10 km long beach of the

Schaabe The Schaabe is a bar (landform), bar, almost twelve kilometres long, on the German Baltic Sea island of Rügen. It joins the peninsulas of Jasmund and Wittow. Washed up and shaped by the sea, it forms a sickle-shaped shoreline on the bay of Tr ...

, the village is dominated by tourism (B&Bs and holiday apartments).

Riesenberg barrow

Nobbin is best known for the

megalithic tomb A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically f ...

known as the ''Riesenberg'' (also ''Großsteingrab Riesenberg''). The tomb was constructed of

glacial erratic A glacial erratic is a glacially deposited rock (geology), rock differing from the type of country rock (geology), rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by gla ...

boulders and dates back to the

New Stone Age The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide- ...

in Rügen. It is one of the largest stone graves in North Germany and lies just a few metres from the steep coast on the bay of

, immediately by the cliff top path (). The trapezoidal enclosure, which originally had 53 large boundary stones, is 34 metres long and 8 to 11 metres wide (39 stones have survived). In the north-east were two transverse

dolmens A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (40003000 BCE) and w ...

, of which only one is well preserved. It is 1.4 metres high, 1.8 metres long and 1.1 metres wide. On the southwest side two guardian stones (''Wächtersteine'') in front of the enclosure rise to a height of over 3 metres, otherwise they are typical, especially of

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

, but also similar in dimensions to the Dolmens of Dwasieden and those in Dummertevitz on Rügen. The presence of guardian stones is rare in Germany, but is explained by the proximity of the site to the Danish islands. During excavations in 1970 by

Ewald Schuldt Ewald Adolf Ludwig Wilhelm Schuldt (3 January 1914 – 1 June 1987) was a German prehistorian who carried out significant research into the megaliths of northern Germany. Life Early years Schuldt was born on 3 January 1914 in Mechelsdorf near ...

, Neolithic finds were made: three crosscutting (''querschneidende'')

arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling. ...

s, a sword, some broken vessels and a few bone fragments (including two skulls). In the northern grave chamber were the remains of an

urn burial ''Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk'' is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with ''The Garden of Cyrus''. The title is Greek ...

from the 5th century B.C. Between the guardian stones were shards of pottery from the Slavic era Rani tribe and an

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

coin from the 9th century, amongst other things. This showed that the ''Riesenberg'' was a significant site for the island inhabitants for millennia.

Literature

* Ingrid Schmidt: ''Hünengrab und Opferstein – Bodendenkmale auf der Insel Rügen''. 1. Auflage. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2001, . * Ewald Schuldt: Der Riesenberg von Nobbin, Kreis Rügen. - In: ''Bodendenkmalpflege in Mecklenburg, Jahrbuch 1971'' (1972), 153–160.

External links

* {{Coord, 54, 39, 14, N, 13, 23, 3, E, type:city_region:DE-MV, display=title Megalithic monuments

Kruckow Kruckow is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It consists of the former municipalities of Borgwall, Heydenhof, Kartlow, Kruckow, Marienfelde, Schmarsow, Tutow-Dorf and Unnode. The municipality ...

History of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Vorpommern-Rügen Towns and villages on Rügen Wittow Putgarten

Riesenberg barrow

See also

Literature

External links