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The first settlements
The area has been inhabited for far longer than the castles might suggest: in the Mesolithic, hunters rested beneath the rock overhangs, and around 3000 years ago there was a fortified settlement on the Pfaffenstein. Around the year 600 Slavic tribes came into the Elbe valley – names such as Dohna, Pirna and the Biela come from them. From the 12th and 13th centuries German settlers laid out the long forest-strip villages known as Waldhufendörfer, of which Rosenthal is one.
Hunters under the rock shelters
As far back as the Mesolithic, around 9500 to 5500 BC, small groups of hunter-gatherers roamed the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. They rested beneath rock overhangs – the spots that climbers today call “Boofen” – and left behind flint flakes and bits of bone. In the Kirnitzsch valley alone, the State Office for Archaeology has recorded 330 such rock shelters, around 20 of which are considered particularly promising; research has been going on there since 2005.
The fort on the Pfaffenstein
Very close to the Hammergut lies one of the oldest fortified sites in the area: excavations on the Pfaffenstein between 1896 and 1912 turned up stone axes, pottery and a grinding stone. On the west side, a rampart and ditch some 200 metres long block the only way up. Investigations revealed an age of around 3000 years – the finds belong to the Bronze Age Lusatian culture. Prehistoric finds are also known from the Lilienstein and the rock castle of Neurathen.
The Heidenschanze near Dresden
The most important Lusatian-culture settlement in the Dresden Elbe valley was the Heidenschanze in Coschütz: inhabited from around 1300 BC, with a rampart that stood until around 500 BC. Around 1000 BC it burned so fiercely that the sandstone turned red. It was only some 1400 years later that Slavs used the site again – Hungarian arrowheads from the raids of around 905 to 933 have even been found there.
Germanic peoples and Slavs
Around the beginning of the Common Era, Saxony was home to the Germanic Hermunduri, and later the Thuringians – although no finds from them are known in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains themselves. After they moved away, West Slavs came into the land, reaching the Elbe valley near Pirna probably around 600: fishermen and farmers. Some 1000 years ago three Slavic districts met here – the Nisane in the Elbe valley from Dresden to Pirna, the Milceni in Upper Lusatia and the Dečané around Děčín. “Nisani” means “the people in the lowland”.
Dohna and Pirna
Dohna is the oldest place in the area to be mentioned in documents: in 1040 the castle of “Donin” appears in a chronicle; before the stone castle there were Slavic earthworks, and the castle hill and the Robisch were already settled in the Bronze Age. The name is interpreted as “property of Doň”. Pirna, too, goes back to a fortified Slavic settlement of the 10th century; the usual interpretation of the name is “na pernem” – “on the hard stone”. Pirna is first mentioned in a charter in 1233.
Slavic names
Many place names in the area are of Slavic origin: the Biela comes from the Czech “Bělá” – the white one; in 1412 it is called “die Bela”. Places ending in -witz, such as Krietzschwitz (1359 “Kritzewitz”) or Postelwitz (1446 “Boßlawicz”), bear the typical Slavic ending, as do Prossen (1412 “Prossentin”), Copitz and Zatzschke, a small round hamlet. The municipality of Struppen considers its name to be “of Wendish origin”, and Lohmen is derived from the Old Slavic word for quarry. Reliable interpretations, though, are far from available for every name.
German settlers and forest-strip villages
After the Slavs were subjugated in 929 and the Margraviate of Meissen was founded in 968, settlers gradually arrived from Franconia, the Rhineland, Flanders and Lower Saxony; by around 1250 some 4000 new villages and towns had sprung up in Saxony. In the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, planned settlement began in the 13th century. Typical are the Waldhufendörfer, or forest-strip villages: the farms are lined up along the stream, and behind each farm a long strip of land stretches up the hillside – and that is how Rosenthal, Langenhennersdorf, Reinhardtsdorf or Papstdorf still look today.
Oldest places
when they were first mentioned: The first documentary mentions according to the Historical Gazetteer of Saxony: Dohna 1040, Lohmen 1206, Pirna 1233, Königstein 1241 as “Lapis regis” (a burgrave “vom Stein” as early as 1233), Liebethal 1241, Stadt Wehlen 1255, Rathen 1261, Struppen 1310, Hohnstein 1317, Rosenthal and Langenhennersdorf 1356, Gottleuba 1363, Reinhardtsdorf 1368, Papstdorf 1371, Bad Schandau 1408, Hermsdorf 1410, Berggießhübel 1412, Gohrisch 1437. Over in Bohemia, Děčín is mentioned as early as 993. For some places, the municipalities themselves give different years.
Around the Hammergut
Rosenthal is named on 19 February 1356 in a document of the archiepiscopal chancery in Prague – at that time it belonged to Bohemia and only came to Saxony in 1503. In 1410 come Hermsdorf, the Brausenstein hammer (“Brussensteyn”) and the forest “die Ruwe”, which later became the village of Raum. In 1452 the hammer works near Rosenthal appear, and in 1470 the Hammergut itself, as “das smedeberg genandt der Neytbergk”. No older finds from the Stone Age or from the Slavs are known in the Bielatal itself – the nearest site is the Pfaffenstein.
As of: 10/2026
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