Heiligenberg (Heidelberg)

Heiligenberg (Heidelberg)
Heiligenberg (left) and Michaelsberg (right), viewed from downstream on the Neckar
Highest point
Elevation	439.9 m (1,443 ft)
Geography
Location	Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

The Heiligenberg is a mountain of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It rises to the east of the Neuenheim and Handschuhsheim sections of Heidelberg. It was called the Aberinsberg in the Carolingian period; in 1265 Premonstratensians from All Saints' Abbey in the Black Forest took over the two monasteries on the mountain, and its name became Allerheiligen-Berg (all saints' mountain), the ancestor of its present name. Since 2012 it has been protected from excavation by the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The Heiligenberg is a low sandstone mountain, with a highest elevation of 439.9 metres (1,443 ft), on the western edge of the Odenwald where it meets the Bergstraße Route and the Upper Rhine Plain. South of it is the Michaelsberg (3,755 metres or 12,320 feet), and on the other side of the Neckar the Königstuhl rises above the old town of Heidelberg. The west and south sides of the Heiligenberg, facing the plain and the Neckar valley, are steep. On the north side the Kerb valley, through which flows a stream called the Rombach or Mühlbach, lies between the Heiligenberg and the Hoher Nistler; to the north-east a ridge connects the Heiligenberg to the Weißer Stein.

The mountain rises above the Heidelberg neighborhoods of Neuenheim and Handschuhsheim. The Philosophers' Way leads up the mountain from Neuenheim for about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi).

The Heiligenberg offers a good view of the plain and the river valley and offers a defensive position. Archaeological investigations have taken place there several times since 1881, including in the 1920s and 1930s during the building of a guest house and the Nazi-era Thingstätte; finds of Neolithic linear pottery show it was inhabited as early as 5500–5100 BCE. Celts settled there beginning in the first half of the first millennium BCE and constructed a double-walled hill fort around the primary and secondary peak. (The water source for this Celtic settlement, known as the Bittersbrunnen, was restored in 1979/80.)