Indo-European Mythology, Religion and Spirituality: The Ancient Sacred Pre-Christian Site of Heiligenberg

The large wooden hill (1,443 ft in height), known as Heiligenberg, overlooking the town of Heidelberg in Baden- Wuerttemberg ranks as the oldest known sacred site in Germany which had been in continuous use for a period of well over 7,000 years, starting in the Neolithic and continuing until fairly recent times. It would be helpful to break down this time period into separate stages so that we can clearly see its gradual development. Before we do this, I would like to explore the etymology of its name.

Heiligenberg has the meaning of 'sacred' or 'holy' mountain' or 'hill' but that in itself does not imply any form of pre-Christian sacrality and indeed this has been its name during modern times, a shortening of Allerheiligen-Berg ('All Saints Mountain'). The name Allerheiligen-Berg followed from the building of two local monasteries, St. Stephen's and St. Michael's in the 11th century and their subsequent taking over by the Premonstratensians in the year 1265.

Prior to 1265 the hill was known as Aberinsberg during the Carolingian period, its oldest known appellation. The etymology is uncertain but the assumption is that the name Aberin was a personal name, so its meaning would be simply, Aberin's mountain/hill. This does not imply any known deity or sacred function.

Aberin has not been preserved in any Frankish or Alemannic mediaeval text as a personal name, so we have a little licence to speculate. If not a personal name then the term may be linked to the Old High German abo or aba from the Proto-Germanic and has the meaning of 'father/elder/ancestor'. This is quite plausible as ancestor worship was an early stage of Germanic religion. Another possibility is that the name is linked to the Old High German ebur from the Proto-Germanic *eburaz and means 'boar', an animal sacred to both the Germanic and Celtic peoples. This would involve a sound shift from Eburin to Aberin, which is quite plausible with Alemannic or Franconian dialects. We can be confident that the etymology is not Celtic and has nothing to do with the mediaeval monkish corruption of the original into Abrahamsberg. We also know that Aberin is not the name of any known deity.

The use of the Heiligenberg reaches back to the Neolithic with the discovery of linear pottery, arrow heads and neolithic flint tools, dated to 5500-5100 BCE. Despite these finds there is no evidence of actual occupation but merely periodic use, which is suggestive of cultic rather than habitational use. Hills and mountains, prominent in the landscape, are representative of liminal boundaries between the habitation of humans here on the earth and the sky gods above. The later long-term and continual use of this site for sacred purposes is suggestive of a prehistoric religious meaning going right back to the Neolithic. However, we lack actual evidence for this assumption.

The hill continued to be visited in the Bronze Age: pottery fragments and Bronze Age flint tools demonstrate this but again there is no outright evidence of cultic use but the arguments relating to the Neolithic still apply to the Bronze Age. The majority of the Bronze Age finds are from the Urnfield Culture, about 1,000 BCE, an important precursor to the emergence in history of the Celts. Bypassing the Hallstatt period, the first major evidence of occupation that we have is from the La Tene Celtic Iron Age, with evidence of mining for ore early on in that period. The Celts constructed a double-walled hill fort around the primary and secondary peaks from 500 BCE. This gave them a panoramic vantage point over the Odenwald, Neckar valley and the Rhine plain. In 1893 a stone fragment of a Celtic head statue was discovered in the Bergheim district of Heidelberg. This strongly implies an elite ritual presence at the site. Constructed from Bundsandstein (coloured sandstone) and resembling in style the princely statue found at Glauberg.

Cut into the summit plateau is a deep narrow shaft, measuring 180ft in depth and about 10ft in diameter, known as the Heidenloch ('heathen hole'). The diameter of the shaft makes it far too narrow for mining and thus there is an assumption that it had some type of cultic utility. The theory that it may have been constructed as a well has been ruled out by geologists because the Bundsandstein is too porous to hold water and the depth of the shaft is insufficient to reach the water table. Likewise, the diameter of the shaft is considered too narrow to be able to function as a well. As this was clearly a ritual rather than a habitational site there would have been no necessity for a well anyway. During the mediaeval period the monastery used cisterns and springs lower down for their water supply. The question arises who built the shaft? The depth, form and placement of the shaft is indicative of Celtic construction, consistent with other such shafts found across central Europe. It is likely that the Romans reused the shaft. Pits, wells and shafts were used by the Celts ritually for deposits of weapons, precious goods, tools, animal remains and food as offerings to the gods, spirits and ancestors. The shaft was effectively a gateway to the chthonic world. It is more than likely that the Romans and Germanics would have viewed the function of the shaft in a similar way.

The continuing use of an established sacred site by an incoming population seems to have been a recurring pattern throughout the European Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Sacred continuity gave legitimacy to an incoming elite, and this continuity appears to have carried through from the Neolithic population to the Celtic, the Romano-Germanic and finally the Christianised Germanic population. The Romans in particular were especially adept in absorbing local Celtic and Germanic deities into their own pantheon, which helped to achieve political adhesion among the local subject Germanic and Celtic populations.

Around 60 CE the Romans established a camp on the Neckar and a sanctuary was built upon the primary summit of the hill which was later incorporated into the Monastery of St. Michael, built in 1023. The foundations of a north orientated temple to Mercury can be found in the nave of the now ruined basilica. Archaeological finds from the site include votive stones with inscriptions to Mercurius Cimbrianus ('Mercury of the Cimbri'). As most of my readers will know, the Roman god Mercury was seen by classical writers as the equivalent (interpretatio romana) of the Germanic Wodan. The Cimbri of course were a Germanic tribe, so we can deduce that by Roman times this area was settled by Germanic people. In addition to the Cimbri, Suebi settled in the region during the first century BCE. After the retreat of the Romans the Alemanni moved into the area around 260 CE. Pre-Christian cultic use of the site of the site continued until at least 600 CE, the last date for burials on the site.

Prior to the construction of the Monastery of St. Michael, the first church to be built on the hill was by Abbot Thiotroch von Lorsch in the 9th century, being mentioned first in 890/891 which is also the earliest reference that we have for 'Aberinesberg'. From 1070 the hill became a site for Christian pilgrimages, thus continuing the ancient tradition of sacral veneration at Heiligenberg. In 1903 the Bismarck Tower was constructed in honour of the great Prussian statesman, Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). Later during the Third Reich, a Thingstaette open air theatre was constructed in 1934/35.