Riesenberg barrow near NobbinRiesenberg barrow from the east
Nobbin is a village in the municipality of Putgarten on the Wittow peninsula on the German Baltic Sea island of Rügen. The village, comprising just a few houses, lies between the road from Altenkirchen to Arkona and the bay of Tromper Wiek. As a result of its attractive location between Cape Arkona and the broad, over 10 km long beach of the Schaabe, the village is dominated by tourism (B&Bs and holiday apartments).
The trapezoidal enclosure, which originally had 53 large boundary stones, is 34 metres long and 8 to 11 metres wide (39 stones have survived). In the north-east were two transverse dolmens, of which only one is well preserved. It is 1.4 metres high, 1.8 metres long and 1.1 metres wide. On the southwest side two guardian stones (Wächtersteine) in front of the enclosure rise to a height of over 3 metres, otherwise they are typical, especially of Scandinaviandolmens, but also similar in dimensions to the Dolmens of Dwasieden and those in Dummertevitz on Rügen. The presence of guardian stones is rare in Germany, but is explained by the proximity of the site to the Danish islands.
During excavations in 1970 by Ewald Schuldt, Neolithic finds were made: three crosscutting (querschneidende) arrowheads, a sword, some broken vessels and a few bone fragments (including two skulls). In the northern grave chamber were the remains of an urn burial from the 5th century B.C. Between the guardian stones were shards of pottery from the Slavic era Rani tribe and an Arabicsilver coin from the 9th century, amongst other things. This showed that the Riesenberg was a significant site for the island inhabitants for millennia.[citation needed]
