Mysterious Stone Rows near Kounov.

VESMÍR - A magazine that dissipates science along with its applications (No. XV (1936-1937)

North of Kounov there is a hill called Rovina (the Plain) 526 m high forming a continuation of Džbán ridge. Somewhere in the middle part of this hill Mr. Patejdl, a teacher, found those stone rows the total number of which is 14.

They are exactly parallel, of different distance from each other from 13 to all 30,3 m, and they go across the entire hill at a length of 400 m. They ran exactly from north to south as illustrated on the sketch. The boulders reach 1 m in size which is pretty substantial, and the rows are compact, i.e. stones form a compact row.
At first look you would say it is just a geological phenomenon as documented by Mr. J. N. Wondřich who is disputing their origin. Also Mr. Stocký and Schránil consider this assumption as right. However, based on more detail findings this hypothesis has been refuted. The entire hill, and therefore its bedrock (subsoil) underneath the rows consist of disintegrated (weathered) arenaceous marl, whereas the stones themselves are composed of quartzite, i.e. they are of much older origin. This circumstance, as well as an exact direction of the rows show, as according to my opinion, that it really represents a precious prehistorically valuable monument. However a real purpose of these rows has not been found out yet.
Compliant to one hypothesis these rows should had been some astronomic lines defining sun movement along with positions of major stars.
Some other explorers assume their religiouspurpose (back from heathen times) which seems to more likely.
In any case it represents a finding of great attraction that makes even a layman to wonder about the past of our historical ancestors.
Jar. Šmíd, odb. uč.

Editor´s Note:
It is rather surprising how many phenomena there are in nature where there is no explanation available in terms of geology. In our case one is tempted to think about rather foolish explanation stating that the stones had been laid on artificially by human beings, and anyway, it is really striking that so many rows are concerned spreading all over the pretty high hill. The main reason is that it is not the veins that are involved - the rocks of the surface do not proceed further down into the deep ground, instead they lay on the surface. But the fact that they lay in parallel lines is striking. One explanation could be that these are actually the remains of a cover: water had penetrated alongside the cracks thus causing sand to get cemented, and when some of the rocks disintegrated (weathered off) only the cemented hardened quartzite sandstone remained forming the lines. And that is an example of natural explanations.

Some more on the topic of stone rows near Kounov.

An article has been published in No.1 of Vesmír magazine about the stone rows on the topside of Rovina (The Plains) near Kounov. Therefore it would not make to much sense just to repeatedly describe them since it is all quite obvious from the sketch illustration attached.
Nevertheless I would like to get back once again to the question of creation of these rows. A rather interesting example has been attached to that article by Vesmír editor explaining the creation of the rows through a natural way. They express doubts about formation by mankind since the rows do cover the entire huge hill. Actually this is a mistake, however. There are only 14 rows as depicted by the sketch. Maybe not all of them are included because we have found similar stones even within a shorter distance from the rows seated in the fields, but not within all over the entire hill anyway. Remaining well-preserved rows are not complete. Most of them - predominantly within the southern part, had been carried away by people to serve as anchor bolts at hop-gardens, and in addition, both ends have been spoiled due to stone pits (quarries). Thus solving the problem of their creation is hampered by the fact that there is no complete preserved picture available, and therefore the hypotheses about their formation vary very much. Some people use to explain their origin due to natural forces as Vesmír editor did, others consider them remnants of megalitic culture, and some consider them even as field banks. This is however least acceptable - the land strips are narrow and field banks would be very thorough, coherent, consisting of very heavy stones weighing a couple of metric cents.

In order to clarify this issue at least a bit the Czech Museum in Žatec Town carried out some excavations in September 2000 at their own costs. In particular a stone had been lifted, lying between rows 3 and 4 seen from the eastside. The stone was lying in the ground in a oblique position, on a tiny knoll, with most of its part buried underground. After digging away surrounding material and lifting it up it was found out that its one side is leaning on semicircle smaller than quartzite (see the sketch drawing attached).

Then another stone had been lifted that lay outside the row. The stone itself was pear-shaped, flattened, and its more narrow end was inserted firmly (stiffly) within a circle of smaller boulders. However, the circle here was complete. The stone was a bit inclining to one side as well. Exactly the same two types of bedding could be found concerning all larger stones within the rows. It could be objected that the smaller boulders in circle are just an insolation of broken-away (split) part of those large ones. However the large stones are smooth and the smaller ones are rounded-off, some differ in color and are probably erected. Especially some smaller ones, slab-like, are erected in vertical position. Also their embedding shows that they were buried under (filled up). Pieces of arenaceous marl, disintegrated (weathered) to a great extent, were lying jumble (disarranged), obliquely as well as vertically, whereas normally arenaceous marl disintegrates (weathers) within horizontal slabs. Some digging was made also under one of particularly large boulders seated within rows of north-south section (illustration of one in last article of issue No.1). However, underneath this one there has been no circle of stones present. The stone was too heavy to be even lifted. It has to be also noted that no archeological research has been carried out beneath any of these stones. Based on excavations of Žatec Town Museum it seem likely that it will be up to archeology to explain creation of the rows, but then the question of age along with origin of these quartizites remains intact further on.
Written by Mr. J. Korelus, in Kounov

Editor´s Note:
Herein we disclose some additional information on stone lines near Kounov. Since we ourselves do not know them it is hard or rather impossible to make any solid conclusions. The way this phenomenon has been described in the article by Mr. J. Šmíd it makes for natural historians to think about it as geological, natural phenomenon despite everything said, and we had provide an example of its possible explanation in our last editor´s note. If it actually was a work of human being then it would not fit within the framework of scope of our magazine anyway.