page_title: Ehrenbürg
section_title: Names and history
hierarchical_section_title: Ehrenbürg / Names and history
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Walberla, Walpurgis-Kapelle
context_page_description: The Ehrenbürg is a double-peaked butte on the edge of the Franconian Jura in Bavaria, Germany. It is in the district of Forchheim in Upper Franconia, in the municipalities of Kirchehrenbach, Leutenbach and Wiesenthau. The north peak is the 513.9 m Walberla, the south peak the 531.7 m Rodenstein. The hill is popularly known as the Walberla.
context_section_description: The name Walberla is first recorded in an 18th-century document referring to students from Erlangen going up the mountain and is presumably derived from St Walburga. A 16th–17th-century chapel dedicated to her stands on the north peak; the first recorded mention of such a chapel is dated 1360.
  The name Ehrenbürg appears to be earlier and has been variously interpreted. One interpretation derives it from Latin arca (protection) and German Burg (fortification), to mean "protective area" or "fort which is a safe retreat", another from Celtic *Ariacon or *Arika; and another from the Ehrenbach and the devices used to catch fish there. There are two local stories about fish. The chapel used to have a statue of the Virgin Mary with a water-filled crown in which a fish swam, and according to legend if the fish slapped its tail against the side of the crown, there would be a flood; also according to legend, an underground lake beneath the hill contains a fish so large that it must swallow its own tail, and if it released it, all the nearby settlements would be inundated by the resulting overflow.
  The hill is also the subject of numerous legends about witches and hidden treasure, and the tale of a fabulous town which once stood at the foot of the hill, an accursed castle which stood where the chapel is now, and an evil woman who was turned to stone and became a rocky outcropping, the "steinerne Jungfrau" (stone virgin).
  The hill was a settlement site from the early Neolithic (approximately 4000 BCE) until the end of the Roman period in the 5th century CE. In the late 14th century BCE, it became a hill fort; in the early Iron Age (approximately 550–380 BCE), under the Celtic Hallstatt and early La Tène cultures, it was a strongly fortified regional centre, with two gates and a citadel, and finds originating from Mediterranean cultures indicate far-flung trade. Remnants of these fortifications are still discernible. However, in the late Iron Age, during the late La Tène period (approximately 150–30 BCE) the hill was only lightly settled; instead, a large unfortified town grew up nearby at Altendorf. The defensive role of the Ehrenbürg appears to have been taken over by the Staffelberg. After an interruption, there was then possible occupation by Germanic people during the late Roman period, around 400 CE; unlike the Celtic settlement, only on the Rodenstein.
  Archaeological finds indicate that during the Hallstatt and La Tène periods, the hill was the site of human sacrifices, possibly including cannibalism. Some human bones, such as a woman's skeleton which was unnaturally bent and buried under boulders, appear to be sacrifices for the luck of a building; some skulls have been cut up and had holes bored in them for use as amulettes; the armless and legless skeleton of a baby, and discarded fragments of human bones with cut marks, both suggest cannibalism. Nine skeletons of newborn babies were also found to have been buried against the eastern foundation of the chapel in the 17th or the 18th century.
  The first archaeological investigations of the Ehrenbürg were conducted beginning in 1903 by Hans Räbel (1872–1941), a teacher in Forchheim who founded the local historical society and was responsible for the foundation of the local museum. He succeeded in both saving Forchheim Castle and preventing development of the hill. Between 1989 and 1995, Björn-Uwe Abels of the Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (Bavarian State Department of Preservation) conducted extensive excavations. In 2005, a tranche was then taken through the wall to reveal the phases of development. Finds from the site, and from the Staffelberg, are now on display at the Archäologiemuseum Oberfranken (Archaeology Museum of Upper Franconia), a branch of the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection housed in Forchheim Castle.
  An early 16th-century wooden statue of St. Walburga by Hans Nußbaum used to stand in the chapel, flanked by statues of her brothers, but was stolen; on 1 May 2000, a new bronze statue in front of it, by Ernst Steinacker, was dedicated.
caption: Chapel of St Walburga
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