![Fotothek df ld 0003066 001 Landschaften ^ Hügellandschaften - Gebirgslandschafte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Fotothek_df_ld_0003066_001_Landschaften_%5E_H%C3%BCgellandschaften_-_Gebirgslandschafte.jpg)
The Teufelsmauer (''Devil's Wall'') is a rock formation made of hard
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
s of the
Upper Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...
in the northern part of the
Harz Foreland
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
in central
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. This wall of rock runs from
Blankenburg (Harz)
Blankenburg (Harz) is a town and health resort in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, at the north foot of the Harz Mountains, southwest of Halberstadt.
It has been in large part rebuilt since a fire in 1836, and possesses a castle ...
via
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale.
The village is well known for being located adjacent to the famed natural rock fo ...
and
Rieder
Rieder is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 December 2013, it is part of the town Ballenstedt. Between 1 January 2011 and 19 February 2013, it was part of the town Quedlinburg.
There ...
to
Ballenstedt
Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Geography
It is situated at the northern rim of the Harz mountain range, about 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Quedlinburg. The municipal area comprises the vil ...
. The most prominent individual rocks of the Teufelsmauer have their own names. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben is also called the ''Adlersklippen'' ("Eagle Crags").
Many
legend
A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...
s and myths have been woven in order to try to explain the unusual rock formation. It was placed under protection as early as 1833 and, in 1852, by the head of the district authority in order to prevent quarrying of the much sought-after sandstone. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben has been protected since 1935 as a
nature reserve
A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...
and is thus one of the oldest nature reserves in Germany.
Course
![TeufelsmauerNeinstedt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/TeufelsmauerNeinstedt.JPG)
The band of rock that forms the Teufelsmauer outcrops at three places between Ballenstedt in the southeast and
Blankenburg (Harz)
Blankenburg (Harz) is a town and health resort in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, at the north foot of the Harz Mountains, southwest of Halberstadt.
It has been in large part rebuilt since a fire in 1836, and possesses a castle ...
in the northwest, over a distance of 20 km. It begins with an outcrop known as the ''
Gegensteine
The Gegensteine are crags near the town of Ballenstedt on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Germany. There are two: the Großer Gegenstein and Kleiner Gegenstein ("Great Gegenstein" and "Little Gegenstein"). They are striking, free-standin ...
'' northwest of Ballenstedt and is continued in the shape of the Teufelsmauer which runs from south of
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale.
The village is well known for being located adjacent to the famed natural rock fo ...
to Warnstedt. Here, the formations of the ''Königstein'', the ''Mittelsteine'' and the ''Papensteine'' rear up from a line of rock about 2 km long running from southeast to northwest. Away to the northwest it continues as a ridge between Timmenrode and Blankenburg (Harz) which includes the ''
Hamburger Wappen
The Hamburger Wappen (" Hamburg coat of arms") is a highly unusual rock feature on the Teufelsmauer ("Devil's Wall") rock formation not far from Timmenrode in the Harz Mountains in central Germany.
The appearance of this sandstone formation, wit ...
'', the ''Heidelberg'' (331.5 m above
NN) and the crags of the ''Großvater'' and ''Großmutter'' (317 m above NN).
Geology
The rock outcrops of the Teufelsmauer are formed of hard
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
s from the various epochs of the Upper
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
. The predominantly clayey and limy strata of the Upper Cretaceous are intercalated by harder sandstones such as
Neocomian
In geology, Neocomian was a name given to the lowest stage of the Cretaceous system. It is generally considered to encompass the interval now covered by the Berriasian, Valanginian and Hauterivian, from approximately 145 to 130 Ma. It was introduce ...
, Involutus and Heidelberg Sandstone, as well as limestones. In addition, quartzitation caused by the ingress of
silicic acid
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...
has produced extreme hardening of the sandstones, restricted to just a few metres of the formerly horizontally-oriented strata.
The layers of rock, like all the strata on the northern edge of the Harz, were sharply tilted or folded over by the uplifting of the Harz up to the Cretaceous period, so that the surface layers are now upside down. A
hiatus
Hiatus may refer to:
*Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure
*Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy
*''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species ''Hiatus fulvipes''
*Globa ...
in the strata between the
lias
Lias may refer to:
Geology
* Lias Formation, a geologic formation in France
*Lias Group, a lithostratigraphic unit in western Europe
* Early Jurassic, an epoch
People
* Godfrey Lias, British author
* Mohd Shamsudin Lias (born 1953), Malaysian ...
and the Lower Cretaceous and the discordant, overlapping layering of the Upper Cretaceous up to the
muschelkalk
The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million ye ...
indicate that activity took place at different times, particularly on the
Northern Harz Boundary Fault
The Northern Harz Boundary Fault (german: Harznordrandstörung or ''Harznordrandverwerfung'') is a geological fault where the Harz Block, which consists of rocks formed during the Palaeozoic Era and folded in the course of Hercynian mountain bui ...
.
The subsequent
erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...
of softer rock exposed the hard rock strata as prominent ribs that form crags and pinnacles up to 20 metres above the surrounding area. Some were subsequently destroyed by the action of rivers or
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s. As a result there are a number of gaps in the Teufelsmauer today.
The individual elements of the Teufelsmauer are not exactly the same age. The ''Gegensteine'' near Ballenstedt has been weathered from a silicified sandstone stratum of the
Emscher
The Emscher () is a river, a tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its overall length is with an mean outflow near the mouth into the lower Rhine of .
Description
The Emscher h ...
epoch. The steeply inclined bands of rock near Blankenburg comprise quartzitic sandstones of the
Santonian
The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya (million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 mya. The ...
. The jagged ridge of rock that forms the Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben, by contrast, consists of younger, and therefore undisturbed, deposits of higher-lying
Senonian
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...
strata. This reaches its greatest height in the ''Mittelstein'' (185.2 m) and the ''Königsstein'' (184.5 m) and stands some 50 metres proud of the
Bode Gorge
The Bode Gorge (german: Bodetal) is a long ravine that forms part of the Bode valley between Treseburg and Thale in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. The German term, ''Bodetal'' (literally "Bode Valley"), is also used in a wider sense to r ...
.
Archaeology
Archaeological finds on the Teufelsmauer show traces of the
Old Stone Age
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tool ...
,
Linear Pottery culture
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing . Derived from the German ''Linearbandkeramik'', it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Inci ...
and the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
.
Soils
The soils formed from the sand of the various sandstones are
regosols and lithic
leptosols which are poor in nutrients.
Flora
The sandy soils have been settled by nutrient-poor grasslands of
Elijah Blue Fescue and
Grey Hair-grass
''Corynephorus canescens,'' common name grey hair-grass or gray clubawn grass, is a species of plants in the grass family, native to Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa but widely naturalized in North America. In the United Kingdom it is ...
, the pioneer vegetation of open, sunny, sandy terrain outside littoral regions. The grasses are in places rich in colourful herbs such as
Breckland Thyme (''Thymus serpyllum''),
Sheep's-bit (''Jasione montana'') and
Carthusian Pink
''Dianthus carthusianorum'', commonly known as Carthusian pink, is a species of ''Dianthus'', native to Europe, from Spain north to Belgium and Poland, and east to Ukraine, occurring in dry, grassy habitats at elevations of up to in mountains.Fl ...
(''Dianthus carthusianorum''). In the open areas of sandy soil there are also species of flower normally found in fields of crops and on roadsides. The vegetation is also characterised by numerous warmth-loving plants such as
Viper's Bugloss
''Echium vulgare'', known as viper's bugloss and blueweed,Dickinson, T.; Metsger, D.; Bull, J.; & Dickinson, R. (2004) ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario. Toronto:Royal Ontario Museum, p. 203. is a species of flowering plant in the borag ...
(''Echium vulgare''),
Flixweed (''Descurainia sophia'') and
St. Lucie Cherry (''Prunus mahaleb'') as well as many common subcontinental species like
Hoary Alison (''Berteroa incana''),
Field Eryngo (''Eryngium campestre''),
Field Mugwort (''Artemisia campestris''),
Spotted Knapweed
''Centaurea stoebe'', the spotted knapweed or panicled knapweed, is a species of ''Centaurea'' native to eastern Europe, although it has spread to North America, where it is considered an invasive species. It forms a tumbleweed, helping to in ...
(''Centaurea stoebe'') and
Asparagus
Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable.
It was once classified in ...
(''Asparagus officinalis'').
The sandstone rocks themselves are lightly covered in
crustose
Crustose is a habit of some types of algae and lichens in which the organism grows tightly appressed to a substrate, forming a biological layer. ''Crustose'' adheres very closely to the substrates at all points. ''Crustose'' is found on rocks and ...
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.[Harzer Wandernadel
The Harzer Wandernadel is a system of hiking awards in the Harz mountains in central Germany. The hiker (or mountain biker) can earn awards at different levels of challenge by walking to the various checkpoints in the network and stamping his or ...]
hiking system at various points along the Teufelsmauer: at ''Gasthaus Großvater'', the inn below the ''Großvater'' rocks, (no. 76), by the ''
Hamburger Wappen
The Hamburger Wappen (" Hamburg coat of arms") is a highly unusual rock feature on the Teufelsmauer ("Devil's Wall") rock formation not far from Timmenrode in the Harz Mountains in central Germany.
The appearance of this sandstone formation, wit ...
'' (no. 74) and on the south side of the ridge at ''Teufelsmauer
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale.
The village is well known for being located adjacent to the famed natural rock fo ...
'' (no. 188).
The formations feature in the film "
Frantz" by
François Ozon
François Ozon (; born 15 November 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter.
Ozon is considered one of the most important modern French filmmakers. His films are characterized by aesthetic beauty, sharp satirical humor and a free-wheeli ...
.
The legends of the Teufelsmauer
From the
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
collection
''"On the Northern Harz, between Blankenburg and Quedlinburg, one sees an area of rocks south of the village of Thale that the people call the Devil's dance floor, and not far from there is the rubble pile of an old wall, opposite which, north of the village, stands a large ridge of rocks. Those ruins and that ridge are called by the people: Devil's Wall
'Teufelsmauer'' The devil fought long with our dear God for dominion over the earth. (actually the devil built it in order to share the world with Him. But since he was only given a certain time and the whole wall was not completed within the time limit, the evil one in his anger destroyed a great deal of his work again, so that only a few pieces of it were left.) At last, a division of the land then inhabited was agreed. The rocks, where the dance floor now is, were to separate the border and the Devil built his wall with loud cheers and dancing. But soon the insatiable one started new quarrels, which ended in him also being given the valley at the foot of the rocks. There is added a second Devil's Wall."''
The legend of the three elves
''"Once upon a time a soldier was granted a tract of land behind Thale, up to the Teufelsmauer, as a reward for his services. This he cleared by the sweat of his brow. He had almost finished his day's work. The tree-trunks lay criss-crossed, their branches hung limp. Only three trees were still standing against the evening sky and he was too tired even to lay hands on them. As he fell into a slumber, however, it seemed to him that he heard moaning and groaning, and he saw little female figures, gleaming like clouds of mist, in the branches, who wailed that they should now lose their lives like their sisters. "You shall see no harm done", he cried, and kept his word. But when, many years later, a descendant of his chopped off these branches too, the soil dried up and the wind carried it away and with it his wealth. This happens to all those who do not respect the little spirits and look after nothing other than themselves and their own greed."''
The Devil and the cockerel
The legend of "the Devil and the cockerel" in the Harz region has two variants:
The first variant of the legend has a market woman from Cattenstedt coming to a small village near Blankenburg with a cockerel: ''"God and the devil were fighting for the possession of the earth, they agreed that God should keep the fertile plains, the Devil, the ore-bearing Harz Mountains, if he had completed a boundary wall by the time the first cock crowed. He built it up to the edge of the Harz. Meanwhile a market woman from Cattenstedt, who was on her way to Blankenburg, came by carrying a cockerel in her basket. With a stone still missing from the wall, the cockerel crowed. The Devil's work had been in vain and he destroyed his wall in a fit of rage."''
The second variant has a farmer's wife from Timmenrode appearing: ''"In a gray time the Devil came to an agreement with the Lord over a division of the estate. He wanted the Harz, however, to be his dominion. So they bet each other that he might have the mountains, if he managed to build in one night a wall as high and strong as the buildings of the emperor. Said and done, the wall rose up in the dark. Then the Lord had a farmer's wife from Timmenrode walk to market with her cockerel and stumble over a small pebble. Whereupon the rooster stretched his neck in the basket and began to crow. The Devil thought the night was over and flung the keystone furiously against his wall, leaving only fragments of it standing."''
These two variants of the North Harz Teufelsmauer legend involving wagers and a cockerel are similar to several versions from the Lower Bavarian Danube region.
External links
Teufelsmauer (Harz)
{{Coord, 51, 45, 27, N, 11, 04, 59, E, type:mountain_region:DE-ST, display=title
Rock formations of Saxony-Anhalt
Rock formations of the Harz
Nature reserves in Saxony-Anhalt
Blankenburg (Harz)
Ballenstedt
Thale