Walle's plow
The Walle plow is a plow that was discovered in Walle in 1927 while cutting peat . With an age of at least 3500 years, the plow is the oldest known plow in Germany and one of the few archaeological finds of this type in Europe.
Site and discovery
The plow was found on July 9, 1927 by Jann Hanßen and his son Heye while digging peat in Walle, East Frisia, on the lower edge of a 1.7 m deep layer of peat. As a finder's reward, Jann Hanßen received 50 marks, which he had to share with the property owner Weinstock.
Location: ( 53 ° 29 ′ 24.6 ″ N , 7 ° 26 ′ 33.2 ″ E, )
Scope of recovery
The plow tree is made of an oak branch and is about 3 m long, the ploughshare measured 60 cm in its original state. The sterz, which is jammed with wedges, is inserted in a square hole in the flock . The front part of the ploughshare is missing because the plow was cut into many individual parts while cutting peat. The first pollen samples were taken at the site in 1927 and forwarded for pollen analysis . It was found that the plow can be dated to the beginning of the Bronze Age at the earliest . However, due to the relatively well developed shape of the hook plow, it is also conceivable that it could be dated to the younger Bronze Age or the Early Iron Age .
A plow of this type made of oak wood with similar dimensions was also found in a flat moor in Papau near Thorn .
The hook plow is known from finds and images of the Neolithic , the Bronze Age, the Iron Age as well as from Hallstatt , Etruscan , Greek and Roman depictions. In the Mediterranean region, this form was to be found up to modern times.
The plow was probably sunk into the bog over the winter months to preserve the wood , which was a common method at the time. In 1983 a stone ax about 3000 years old was found not far from where the plow was found.
Dating
Since the plow began to decay heavily in 1937, it was brought to the State Museum in Hanover for conservation , where the original is still to this day. Initially in the 4th millennium BC, later (in the 1950s) in the late Neolithic Age (around 2000 BC), recent measurements date the plow to the early Bronze Age (1940 to 1510 BC).
A replica of the plow is in the Historical Museum in Aurich . In Walle, on Utlandshoerner Straße towards Kolonat Georgsfeld , a memorial stone today commemorates the find.
literature
- Karl-Ernst Behre / Hajo van Lengen : East Frisia. History and shape of a cultural landscape . Aurich 1995, ISBN 3-925365-85-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dirk Hecht: The cord ceramic settlement system in southern Central Europe. A study on a neglected genus of finds in the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (PDF; 34.2 MB). Dissertation. Heidelberg 2007. p. 197.