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 LARGEST - Granite Bowl carved from a single stone - Berlin, Germany
N 52° 31.147 E 013° 23.949
33U E 391380 N 5819982
A giant granite bowl carved from an erratic bolder.
Waymark Code: WMZX68
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date Posted: 01/16/2019
Views: 7
German Wikipedia informs us, that
"...with a weight of 165,000 lb, a diameter of 22' 8'' and a circumfence of 71' 2''...", the giant Granite Bowl at the Berlin Lustgarten is "...the world's largest bowl carved from a single stone."
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In 1826, sculptor Christian Gottlieb Cantian manufactured a granite bowl with a diameter of six feet for the English Duke of Devonshire. When Prussian King Frederick William III found out that the (then) largest granite bowl in the world had been sold to England, he was outraged and ordered the artist to sculpt an even bigger bowl for the Prussian capital Berlin. In 1828, the slug for the new bowl was carved from the Great Margrave Rock, an erratic bolder in the Rauen Hills. The bolder - up until then biggest erratic in the state - was almost cut in half.
It took six weeks to transport the slug - rolling on wooden logs - from the carving site to river Spree. From there, a barge, specially built for this transport - shipped it to Berlin. Along the way on the river, even the passage under one of Berlin's bridges had to be widened for the giant rock.
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On November 6, 1828, the bowl arrived in Berlin where it was polished and finished, which took another 2 1/2 years. When all work was done, the bowl ended up with a diameter of 22 feet and eight inches - much more than the seventeen feet Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel had expected.
Schinkel originally planned the bowl to be the center piece of the rotunda of the Altes Museum building. When it turned out that the finished bowl was too large for that location, it was decided to put it in front of the building, where it was placed in 1831. There it miraculously survived all bombs and grenades of World War II and can still be admired today. |
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Type of documentation of superlative status: Wikipedia
Location of coordinates: Center of the bowl
Web Site: [Web Link]
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