The Hercules

Hercules

Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

 monument is an important landmark in the German city of Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

. It is located in the "Bergpark (Mountainpark) Wilhelmshöhe

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

The Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is a unique park in Kassel, Germany. Art historian Georg Dehio , inspirator of the modern discipline of historic preservation, described the park as "possibly the most grandiose combination of landscape and architecture that the Baroque dared anywhere" The Bergpark...

", northern Hesse

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Hercules

Hercules

Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

 is a copper statue depicting the ancient Greek demigod Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

 (Gr. Ηρακλής, German Herkules). The statue is located at the top of a Pyramid

Pyramid

A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

, which stands on top of the Octagon; the statue and the other parts of the monument were constructed at different times. Today "Hercules" refers not only to the statue, but the whole monument, including the Octago and Pyramid. The monument is the highest point in the Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark.

The monument is located in Bad Wilhelmshöhe, on the Eastern ridge of the Habichtswald. It was built in an artificial dell of the Karlsberg (526m above sea level) on the most western and at the same time highest location (515 m) of the line of sight Schloss Wilhelmshöhe - Hercules.

Building history

Construction of the Bergpark began in 1696. The Hercules statue was built in the years 1701 to 1717 and is based on the design of the Italian Giovanni Francesco Guerniero. The entire complex is the Northern-most part of the park and is an important baroque aspect of the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe.

Water features

For the first time the water features took place on the 3rd of June in 1714. Today during the summer (from May until October every wednesday and sunday afternoon) visitors can attend this event. Additionally, every first saturday of the months of june, july, august and september this event takes place during the evening with lights of different colors illuminating the water, the fountain and the different monuments. Every time about 350.000 liters of water are needed and visitors can follow the water's way starting from the Hercules monument and ending at the big lake of the castle Wilhelmshöhe. The water runs down the cascades, the Steinhöfer's waterfall, the devil's bridge, until it tumbles down the aqueduct before finally arriving at the lake of the castle where a fountain of about 50 meters ends the spectacle. This whole system is working on a natural basis with the help of natural pressure assured by several water reservoirs and underground pipelines whose locks are opened manually. Remarkably this way of working has been preserved for almost 300 years now.

Octagon & statue

The Hercules monument has a total height of 70.5 meters. 32.65 meters are accounted for by the Octagon; 29.60 meters for the Pyramid and 8.25 meters for the Hercules statue itself. The height difference between top of the statue and the bottom of the cascades is 179 meters.

Building material

The complete structure (Octagon & Cascades) are made of Tuff

Tuff

Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...

that was sourced from quarries nearby. This soft material has the advantage of a good workability but weathers quickly, particularly by frost-related erosion. This rapid weathering process has been a structural issue for the statue in its 300 years of existence. In late 2005 a complete restructuring process of the entire monument, including the Hercules statue, was initiated. Expected to be completed in 2009, the restoration of the statue and monuments has been estimated to cost more than 24 million Euro.

External links

• Google Sketchup Model of the castle
• Video of the waterfeatures

Literature

• Giovanni Francesco Guerniero, Delineatio Montis, Cassel 1706

Faksimile, Leipzig 1988 (auch Stuttgart 1988)

• Paul Heidelbach, Die Geschichte der Wilhelmshöhe. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig, 1909

Faksimile, Hrsg: Dieter Carl, Vellmar 2005

• Christiane Lukatis (Hrsg.), Herkules. Tugendheld und Herrscherideal. Das Herkules- Monument in Kassel- Wilhelmshöhe., Eurasburg 1997, ISBN 3-9323-5306-4
• Thomas Ludwig, Der Herkules in Kassel, 2004, ISBN 3-7954-1668-X