In Roofs, Walls and Towers

Abstract

This article deals with prehistoric stone objects called ‘thunderstones,’ which in the Middle Ages through modern times wereoften placed at the border points of houses and farm buildings (e.g., roofs, chimneys, walls, thresholds), as well as in town walls and other defence walls. It should be assumed that they were used as a magical means to protect areas considered to be controlled by humans (orbis interior) from threats posed by the outside world (orbis exterior). The clearly marked repetition of the same types of places in which these prehistoric stone objects were deposited (in areas places inhabited and used by humans) in many European regions indicates that this was a chronologically and territorially widespread phenomenon.