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German passage mounds and dolmen by E. Sprockhoff
The book of E. Sprockhoff, 1966
has an overview a lot of the passage mounds and dolmen in the
northern parts of Germany. Most of the mounds have some east-west
aligment (see also more alignment info on Dutch
and German passage mounds).
One of the described passage mounds is very interesting! It is a
pity it does not exist anymore, but it was situated some 500 metres
south from the centre of the village Utersum on the island Föhr near
the Danish border.
This passage mound has two passages, one in north-east direction
(some 7 m long) and one south-west direction (some 3.5 m long).
The chamber is 2.5 x 1.5 m on the inside.
This could be very well a summer solstice sunrise and winter
solstice sunset alignment (around 3500BCE).
Here is a possible directions (assuming that the North arrow in
the map is the True North):
A few things to realise:
- Assuming the North arrow as True North, gives the best mapping
on solstice events.
- In past excavation maps normally the North arrow is the
Magnetic North. So is it in this German reference (original map
in 1958 paper of Kersten) also Magnetic North?
- Magnetic North is 4.84degrees west of True North (around 1956).
- The Summer solstice rise is slightly
off the passage direction (1 deg).
- Magnetic North (and its derived True North) can have an error
of around 0.5deg (1sigma).
This error is of course depending how accurate the magnetic
measurements have been taken.
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Last content related changes: June 6, 1997