Alte Burg

The Alte Burg is a circular rampart of a Slavic fortification standing beside the Kölpinsee in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte. It lies two and a half kilometres north-east of Göhren-Lebbin within the Blüchersches Bruch nature reserve. A single road, Zum Burgwall, leads from the village straight to the site. The earthen bank rises about one and a half metres above the surrounding ground and is fronted by a ditch three metres wide and half a metre deep.

Experts believe the original wall was a timber-and-earth construction topped with a palisade. The fort once stood on a narrow tongue of land between shallow lakes, but the building of the Müritz-Elde waterway in the late 18th and early 19th centuries lowered the lake by about one and a half metres. As the surrounding marshes dried, the site lost its island character and became part of the drained meadowland.

No archaeological excavations have been carried out, so the date and purpose of the fort remain uncertain. Scholars suggest it served as a refuge in times of danger. Its exact relationship to the nearby Kleiner Eschhorst rampart is also unclear. The earthworks enclose roughly eight thousand five hundred square metres and can still be walked in a wide circle.