Volume 22

Contemporary Online Solstice Celebrations at Prehistoric Sites

Reinhard Mussik

Abstract

The sun, moon, stars and planets have been worshipped in many cultures in different historical periods. At the beginning of the seventeenth century in the German region of Upper Lusatia some people were caught 'red-handed' by their parish priest praying to the sun at rock formations at sunrise and sunset. At the summer solstice 2012 a group of hobbyist archaeoastronomers established an Internet interconnection between similar rock formations in the same region. All the rock formations involved were mooted to have been sacred sites of a prehistoric sun cult. Could this phenomenon be a revival of a long-forgotten cult? This article explores the motivation of the organisers of and participants in the virtual interconnections at the summer solstice 2014. Surprisingly, these people were mainly interested in archaeoastronomy and local history, not in New Age spiritual ideas. Furthermore, they felt connected to an assumed pan-European sun cult which could have been ubiquitous at a time when borders between European countries did not exist.