Alsengemme

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"Gem from Alsen", found in Sønderborg in 1871

As Alsengemmen a group of medieval glass - gems called. The two-layer cast glass is black on the curved underside, light blue on the flat top and decorated with an incised figural representation. Its name comes from a specimen found on the Danish Baltic island of Alsen in 1871 .

Alsengemmen were long regarded as pagan amulets from the Carolingian - Ottonian period, which were manufactured in the late 8th and 9th centuries in the northern Netherlands , and during the 10th century in the Westphalian - Lower Saxony area and reused as spolia by goldsmiths in later centuries ( Otto- Friedrich Gandert ), recent investigations into the circumstances of the finds indicate that they were high-medieval glass gems with a Christian meaning and, in some cases, probably badges of pilgrims or merchants ( Mechthild Schulze-Dörrlamm ). The Alsengemmen, of which 100 specimens are known so far, are divided into three types of different time, distribution and function:

The oldest bear the figure of a striding man, an animal or a symbolic sign in profile. They were produced from the beginning of the 11th century to the early 13th century and - like the real antique and Byzantine gems - were used almost exclusively to decorate liturgical implements and reliquaries . They occur predominantly in the area between the Meuse and the Lower Elbe , a few also in Italy and Spain. According to this, the first Alsengemmen could have been made by Mediterranean glass workshops and imported into German areas where there was as yet no significant glass production.

The second type shows two standing figures, two men or a man and an angel, in profile, who turn to each other and hold hands. These Alsengemmen were in use from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 13th century and - apart from individual finds in the coastal regions on the North and Baltic Seas - were used for goldsmithing in the Dutch-northwestern German area.

It was not until the end of the twelfth century and into the middle of the fourteenth century that Alsengemmen of the third type emerged, on each of which three (so far only four) bearded men are depicted with billowing coats, looking at each other and holding hands. According to the investigations of Otto-Friedrich Gandert, these are depictions of the Magi based on Mediterranean models. Since their bones have been kept and venerated in Cologne since 1164 (→ Dreikönigenschrein ), it can be assumed that these gems were not only produced in Cologne, but were also sold there as devotional objects . They are likely to have been spread by pilgrims or merchants who had placed themselves under the special protection of the traveler's patrons into the coastal regions of the German-speaking realm and far beyond its borders. Most of them represent soil or reading finds , which come to light primarily in the Netherlands, northwest Germany and Denmark, but also occasionally in Norway , Sweden and northwest Russia. They seem to have been carried loosely in the pocket and lost in the process, as they have not yet been found in graves.

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