Burgruine Alt-Morungen

Sangerhausen, Germany, Germany

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Burgruine Alt-Morungen near Morungen, a district of Sangerhausen in Saxony-Anhalt's Mansfeld-Südharz region, Germany, is the ruin of a small imperial ministerial hilltop castle first associated with Graf Goswin the Elder around 1030, later passing through the Groitzsch family—who sold it to Emperor Friedrich I in 1157—and the Lords of Morungen.

Possibly the birthplace of minnesinger Heinrich von Morungen (c. 1150-1220), it features remnants of walls, ramparts, ditches, and a bergfried tower stump on a 140-meter-long site, likely abandoned around 1200 for the nearby Neu-Morungen castle during incomplete expansion works, possibly after a 1266 siege by Thuringian landgrave Albrecht.

Recent findings suggest it served briefly as a secondary fortification before falling into ruin by the 13th century.