Talk:Goseck Circle

'''What about the four excavated graves from nearby Eulau, dated to ~2600 BC ? Perhaps they merit some sort of link ?'''

Who are these 'British loyalists' who claim to dispute the dating of the Gosek Circle? Googling "Goseck circle" produces no results at all. A reference would be appreciated. Fondest wishes adamsan 08:01, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * As no response from the author is forthcoming, I shall remove the unsubstantiated (and rather eccentric) assertions in the article. adamsan 19:18, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

--- Someone with an account should upload the picture http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Goseck-2.jpg from the german wikipedia (public domain). The yellow lines show the the direction of sun rise and set at the winter solstice. The vertical line shows the astronomical meridian.
 * Done as requested. Nagelfar 08:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

--- Removing this paragraph: The press dubbed Goseck "the German Stonehenge," stating that it "precedes the final stage of Stonehenge by three millennia": "Discovery of the German Stonehenge proves that the Germans were at least as advanced as the British in the Stone Age" [1]. Irrelevant comparison, and ridiculous comparison. And a useless bit of info about press and nationalism. --Dumbo1 01:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "although many British enthusiasts refuse the use of the term henge for anything outside Britain. (See henge.)" : The term of 'henge' should be explained in archaeological terms (archaeologically, is Goseck a 'henge'? Or not?) and POV removed.--89.49.33.72 17:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed the bit about British enthusiasts, as it is obsolete and the current definition doesn't say only in Britain, but does still call for a bank. I've also removed the bit about the Nebra disk as that is what, 3500 years younger than the Gosseck Circle? I'm still worried about the calendar stuff, looks like speculation,Doug Weller (talk) 10:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Sunrise and sunset of winter solstice Vs Summer and winter solstices
The diagram of the Goseck circle describes the two southern entrances as indicating the rise and set of sun at the winter soltice whereas the linked wikipedia article about the Goseck circle says that these entrances mark the sun's position at the summer and winter solstices. This discrepancy needs to be resolved. 92.21.59.90 (talk) Moved from article by Thesevenseas (talk) 19:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * the image file says in german: "Sonnenobservatorium von Goseck. Aufsicht mit Darstellung von Sonnenauf- und untergang zur Wintersonnende". loosely translated: "Solar Observatory of Goseck. Supervision with representation of sunrise and sunset for Winter solstice." this does not jive with the Discovery section in the goseck article. i am moving this discussion from the winter solstice talk page to the goseck circle talk page. please update Talk:winter solstice if a conclusion is reached99.140.187.120 (talk) 17:50, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is with our (home-made, unreferenced) drawing. This plaque indicates that (at least in the interpretation of the people who put together the visitor information), the circle did include markers for both solstices, as well as some "spring festival", apparently of arbitrary (not astronomically significant) date. --dab (𒁳) 10:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

"observatory"
The site is often described as a "solar observatory". But this happens mostly in shoddy and journalistic sources. Technically, anyone watching a sunrise is engaged in "solar observation". But the term is altogether too grand, and suggests some sort of pseudoarchaeological fringe theory. What was "observed" was not the Sun as a heavenly body (which the modern term "solar observatory" would imply), e.g. the sun spots, spectrum, etc. The "observation" is limited to marking the point of sunrise/set on solstice days. Thousands of churches are aligned towards these points without being called "solar observatory". I appreciate that this is significant in the history of astronomy because it is the first such alignment known, ever. It is still jarring to throw around misleading descriptions like "solar observatory". The archaeologists mostly avoid doing this. The Germans have the very fitting term of Kalenderbauten, "a structure built with the purpose of serving as a calendar". --dab (𒁳) 15:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The English translation of "Kalenderbauten"; is that perhaps "solar observatory"? The churches that you mention are already called "churches". To change their name might offend some. For all we know, this circle could have been a temple, but "solar observatory" is all that we can assume.

Kortoso (talk) 18:41, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Related to your topic, and may need UPDATE checks occasionally
Hi, in addition to your comments, the article uses a ref that agrees with you that Goseck is NOT DEFINITELY an observatory (or Solar calendar), its discoverers presented that ONLY as a preliminary theory not as a solidly known fact, so I changed the wording to fit the citation given.

I also edited today to fit the fact that that source claiming Goseck as "oldest" may be {outdated} because the following stone circles (see bold text) were dicovered circa 2010 which are thus far are dated to 20,000-5,000BCE, and also are said by their modern-age discoverers to have "likely" alignments to the sun's solstice (used as calendars to time the planting/harvesting cycles ACCORDING TO the theories of each henge's discoverers/archeologists), whilst some of the following ALSO have the cup-and-ring marks & ceremonial burials found at at UK's henges (so it'd be one shit of a coincidence if 2 cultures who never met BOTH built circles of uprighted stones, used for solar astronomy, cupmarks, AND as ceremonial burial sites, but until further analysis is done in a GLOBAL/international context, we can't put that part into WP articles yet): Atlit Yam, Nabta Playa, & an as-yet unnamed henge for which one can google "stone circle Galilee" -- this last one being a MUCH older circle of uprighted stones in Israel (originally dated near the age of Atlit Yam's henge, but now re-dated to 20k-10k BCE, but as submarine salvage work is epensive & slow-going, and "oldest" (up to 20,000 BCE!) tends to be deepest, it and Atlit Yam are so old that they're SUBMERGED...so these may take the longest to excavate. ALL of these, and Goseck, are only POSSIBLE observatories until a Scientific Consensus is formed. However, noteworthy is that younger types of megaliths are also shared between UK & Kanaan (Israel/Lebanon region), e.g. dolmens circa 3,000-1,500 BCE in Israel (older in UK, and they eist all across Europe such as in Italy & Russia), and the cairn/tumulus of Rogem Hiri (exposed layer dated to circa 3,000 BCE, with a gate that, again, "LIKELY" was aligned to sunrise on summer solstice), but an unexcavated layer estimated to be 4,000 BCE is under its 40,000,000 kg of stones that are EXPOSED and 3,000 BCE (so, just as Salisbury stonehenge has 2 simple wood posts carbon-dated to 8,000 BCE in its parking lot & it took awhile to find those 2 wood post-holes at Salisbury, in contrast to the very obvious & easily-seen stone circle at Salisbury, we may have a continuous culture at Rogem Hiri much older than the thus-far EXPOSED layer), so these younger types of non-henge megaliths may indicate an ONGOING searoute tween the UK and the Levant, but we can't exxactly put that into articles until further research confirms it...but it's exciting as we know Phoenicians such as Himilco & Hanno (Iron Age) are known to have reached the UK, along that searoute is Karnak France's megaliths (same name as a city in Egypt, Karnak), Cadiz is a Phoenician-founded city in Western Spain with MEGALITH present in Cadiz as well, Cadiz is near the native-Spanish COPPER mining city of Tartessos (likely exported copper to Kanaan in Bronze or even Chalcolithic Age), so this searoute Himilco finally RECORDED is "possibly" much older than Himilco himself & was long-known to his Kanaanite forefathers...unless we COINCIDENTALLY have 2 cultures [UK & Mideast] who just HAPPENED to both use, circa 8,000 BCE or earlier, cupmarks, ceremonial burial & "likely" solar tracking at (in & near) uprighted stone circles, right near the same era, and then they ALSO both definitely used dolmens & cairns in later eras ;-) ).

Phrasing
This sentence seems a bit unclear. "Excavators also found the remains of what may have been ritual fires, animal and human bones, and a headless skeleton near the southeastern gate...." The words "what may have been" could refer to all the things listed, so are the human bones not actually proven to be human? If they are then that phrase should be moved to after the items that are confirmed and then,ritual fires' included at the end of the sentence. 86.128.240.4 (talk) 01:21, 18 May 2014 (UTC)