Goseck Circle: The Oldest Known Solar Observatory

In 1991, inspectors from the German government took aerial photographs of a small German town called Goseck and saw something strange.  On the ground, there appeared to be a giant circular ridge hidden beneath a field.  It would take archaeologists 12 years to realize that this ridge was the remains of an ancient solar observatory.  Archaeologists also found the remnants of ritual fires and human bones with cut marks on them indicating that the circle was not just for star gazing but also for human sacrifice.  Curiously, a 3,600 year old bronze disc was discovered just 25 kilometers away from the site and is considered to be the oldest concrete representation of the cosmos.  It shares a striking similarity with Goseck Circle.

Goseck Circle – A Neolithic henge

Goseck Circle or Goseck Henge, is an early Neolithic Henge structure with entrances orientated to the rising and setting solstices.  It was apparently created by Europe’s first civilization, long before the cultures of Mesopotamia and the pyramids of Egypt.  Dubbed the German Stonehenge, the structure has been radiocarbon dated to 4900 BC.  Hundreds of similar wooden circular ridges just like it were built during a 200 year period around the same time.  It is one of the best studied of the more than 250 ring ditches identified by aerial surveys throughout Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia.  Previously, archaeologists had thought that these henges might have simply been ancient fortifications.