The secret of Tatra megaliths

They stood here silently for thousands of years, and people came to them from great distances to determine the approaching season suitable for agricultural work with the help of the stone grouping and shields of the Snowy Mountains.

(The picture is illustrative, combined from shots at Michaels field and at the modern menhirs in Banská Štiavnica)

In other countries, similar places are protected and visited, in our territory at the beginning of the twentieth century, people probably dismantled them during land reclamation to serve as boundary stones. Could a photo of five monoliths under the Tatras from the end of the 19th century reveal not only their use but also the Slavic origin of the name of the town of Kežmarok?

Thanks to a photograph that was preserved from the end of the 19th century and was published in Professor Ján Lipták's book About history of Spiš in 1935 and later in the book The wind blows over Kežmarok by the historian Nora Baráthová, in 2013 I also went to Michaels field above Kežmarok to look for any signs and remains of a megalithic structure, but I was not as fierce as three researchers - Rastislav Ferulík, Michal Gemza and Martin Krasuľa, who searched for traces of these megaliths for a whole ten years in order to reveal their secrets.

Ján Lipták writes in his book that the grouping of five stones on Michaels field serves to determine the season according to the direction of the sunset and they come from the Neolithic period, until approximately 2300 BC. These stones were also described in his memoirs by the versatile scholar of his time, Juraj Buchholtz Jr., who went to the megaliths on June 21, 1725, on the day of the summer solstice, to observe from the stones behind which Tatra ridge the sun sets on the longest day of the year. His report was published a year later by the Vratislavský zborník and, as the Nezdolný vrch Civic Association writes on its website, this report can be considered one of the first recorded archaeoastronomical observations in the world.

The last report on the stones, a few years before their destruction, was given in 1897 by Dr. Michal Greisiger and describes their calendar function: "The boulders stood in rows pointing to different places on the horizon where the sun sets during important holidays such as the spring equinox, the beginning of the month of May, the summer solstice and others. Stones set in this way are at the foot of Jerusalem Hill and on Michaels field (near Kežmarok)." This description is also important because it mentions two places near the town of Kežmarok where megalithic structures were located.

The second place was the already mentioned Jerusalem Hill, rising directly above the city, where there was a citadel with an acropolis, a ceremonial place from the Bronze Age. At its foot in the past, there were large stones lined up in rows, pointing to the exact places where the Sun sets on the Tatra ridge during the most important holidays of the year. The association writes on its website: "The slopes were covered by a glassy layer of scorched earth, where, according to rumors, an eternal fire burned, the seat of a powerful ruler who measured time - the place in Slovakia most similar to the popular legend of the King of Time." Archaeological findings and historical reports, together with the geographical features of this territory, testify to a landscape that archaeoastronomy would call sacred (Sacred Landscape)."

As Martin Krasuľa revealed to me, in 2010, a geologist and archaeologist from Sweden, Mr. Peter Kresten, examined the acropolis on Jerusalem Hill and confirmed that it is a unique structure that has no parallel in this area, as it was built using the typical sintered mound technique for Scotland and the British Isles and is thus the easternmost structure of its kind.

"In the center of the acropolis there was a huge "cauldron" where an "eternal" fire burned and according to an old Slovak legend, the King of Time lived on such a hill. The fact that such a fire burned in this place was also confirmed by partial archaeological research (as well as several historical documents), during which a layer of ash reaching a height of 100 cm was found in the center of the acropolis. The number of artifacts found testify to the use of this place during various rituals in ancient times. It is sad that the acropolis was mostly destroyed by the intention to build an amphitheater on the mentioned hill during the socialist era," revealed Martin.

But let's go back to the megaliths on Michaels field. How exactly could they fulfill the function of a calendar already 4000 years ago? Researchers from the Nezdolný vrch association undertook a number of tours and measurements to confirm that from the place where the megaliths once stood, people could determine the change of seasons or the time for agricultural work several times a year according to the Tatras ridge, and nothing has changed about it until today and it will be true for another thousand years.

The researchers write on their website: "When viewed from Kežmarok, the Tatra Mountains stretch on the horizon from approximately west to northwest, and the optically highest peak of the Tatra Mountains - Lomnický štít - dominates the center of the panorama. On the first day of spring, the setting sun touches the Tatra ridge for the first time. Half a year later, on the autumnal equinox, it will set behind the Tatras for the last time. In the first week of May, the Sun will set behind the optically highest mountain, Lomnický štít, and will return to it in a quarter of a year at the beginning of August. On the summer solstice, the Sun reaches its northernmost point on the horizon - Kopské sedlo. It will spend several evenings here in one place, as if resting before a journey to the south lasting half a year."

But could these megalithic structures located on two sides of the city of Kežmarok also hide an ancient clue about the origin of its name? As Martin Krasuľa further explained to me, many historians, archaeologists, researchers and enthusiasts devoted themselves to the creation of the city, and more than 150 variants of the city's name are recorded. "As the oldest name of the city, the variants Kaszmark, Kesmark, Kismark are mentioned in a document from 1269 in connection with the arrival of the Saxons. They saw the explanation of this name in the translation from the Germanic language where slovak word “Syr” (cheese) is said to be “Käse” and “market” is said to be Markt. Perhaps they also associated it with one of the oldest streets of Kežmarok, Starý trh (Old market). However, the oldest names mentioned in various documents do not indicate this. There is no markt in any of them, but only a mark, that is, rather a territory, a mark."

But Martin does not end with this theory. The members of the Nezdolný vrch association searched much further in order to confirm their theory that the name of the city does not have Germanic roots, but comes, like the other names of the surrounding cities, from Slavic origins. "In our opinion, the name of the city goes much deeper into history. According to archaeological evidence, the settlement of the Undertatra basin dates back to at least 3500 years before our era. Already at the turn of the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, there were well-known trade routes that connected north with south and east with west, and the best and most visible landmark from afar was the High Tatras - Snowy Mountains. These mountains were given a name in the past that did not change for centuries and that was the Tatras (in various forms). Why would the Slavic names of villages or surrounding hills such as Didislavpotoka, Zalatykpotoka, Promberg, Prym, Dubin and Kežmarok not be preserved?"

If we were to search for the period of the arrival of the first Indo-Europeans from the region of Southeast Asia, who abounded not only in the knowledge of crop cultivation, but also in the knowledge of measuring the time of the annual cycles suitable for cultivation by observing the Sun, the Moon and the stars in the sky, and they precisely chose a place for Michaels field, where the monoliths were placed in the direction where the Sun sets behind the Tatras exactly during the equinoxes and solstices, the main meaning of this area would be the measurement of time.

"If we start from the latest knowledge and development of languages throughout Central Europe and our region, we have to start from the oldest Proto-Indo-European language. From the Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, edited in 2008 by Rick Derksen, we learn that the Balto Slavic word kes means time. By combining the words kes and mark (territory, brand, mark), we could get the original and therefore the oldest name of the city of Kesmark (Kežmarok). So, if we wanted to be very daring, one of the possible meanings of the name Kežmarok could also be the place where or from where time was measured. It is the same with the Baltic or Old Russian translation kīsman. So we see that the two oldest names of the city, which are mentioned in documents from 1269: Kesmark, Kismark, come from the basis of the old Slavic word kes, which means time in translation," revealed the secretive Martin. "It is sad that even though we live in an age of new knowledge, we glorify and build statues of monarchs who did not bring any progress or growth to the city and the region itself, and we forget the people and cultures - our Slavic ones, which gave this place its importance throughout history."

Since the Michaels field has been farmed for centuries, further knowledge would be revealed only by archaeological research, just like on Jerusalem Hill. The results of this research clearly offer a new perspective on the uniqueness of the Tatra region in ancient times.

Sources:

TS O. Z. Nezdoľný vrch
Článok:
Vysoké Tatry vydali ďalšie svoje tajomstvo! Traja bádatelia možno po niekoľkých
storočiach objasnili pôvod názvu mesta Kežmarok.
Tatranský dvojtýždenník číslo 23/XXXIV

Titulná fotografia je ilustračná
Ostatné fotografie sú od O. Z. Nezdoľný vrch