Old Saxon cemetery in Liebenau
Coordinates: 52 ° 35 ′ 16 ″ N , 9 ° 4 ′ 32 ″ E
| Old Saxon cemetery in Liebenau | ||
|---|---|---|
 The find and excavation site on the Heidberg sand dune in a light forest |
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| location | Lower Saxony , Germany | |
| Location | at Liebenau | |
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| When | 4th century to 9th century AD | |
| Where | Liebenau , Lower Saxony | |
| displayed | in the Nienburg Museum | |
The old Saxon grave field Liebenau is a grave field near Liebenau (Lower Saxony) , which was used between the 4th and 9th centuries for cremation and body burials . It is located on the Heidberg, a stretch of dunes up to 4 meters high along the river Große Aue , which has been known for prehistoric finds since the beginning of the 20th century. During the excavation work of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover , which began in 1953 and lasted over 35 years , around 520 graves were discovered. The grave goods provided important insights into the culture of the Old Saxons .
location
The old Saxon cemetery Liebenau was created on the dune range of the Heidberg, which is about 2 km southwest of Liebenau and north of the Liebenau-Steyerberg road. It is an elongated sand drift running in an east-west direction , which is up to 200 meters wide and around 2 km long. It runs between the Reese residential area and the Liebenau Jewish cemetery on Landesstrasse L 251. The dune stretches along the south bank of the Great Aue, which is a left tributary of the Weser .
The archaeological excavations from 1953 onwards showed that the dune reached a height of 4 meters and was based on existing alluvial clay . Based on the find situations, their expansion in the period between 2500 and 700 BC. To date. After its use as a burial ground ended in the 9th century, the inland dune continued to migrate in parts.
The area is likely to have been settled early, even if the site of the burial ground has not yet been found. As a tributary of the Weser, the Große Aue offered the settling people a good access to the river. The area was also higher up and offered protection from regular floods from the Weser. An old military road ran nearby .
The name Heidberg for the area is an old field name . The reason for the naming is no longer known, but could be traced back to its former state as a heather landscape . The Old Saxons buried their dead almost exclusively in the sand of the dune, as no graves were found in neighboring areas. The good state of preservation of the graves found is due to the dune sand, which, as poor soil, has never been used for agriculture . Due to the lack of possible uses, the sand dune remained largely undisturbed until the 1950s. Until then, there had been human interventions through smaller sand extraction and the construction of the Nienburg - Uchte rail link and the Liebenau - Steyerberg road link. Archaeological finds such as urns near the Liebenau train station and in the area of the Liebenau Jewish cemetery were also found.
discovery
The richness of finds on the Heidberg for relics from prehistory and early history has been known since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1910 a student donated remains of bones and urns from a burial mound to the Hannover Provincial Museum . An intensive observation of the earth's surface of the area, which was used as a sand extraction point early on, was carried out in the 1930s by home carers, teachers and citizens of the area. In 1932 shards and bronze fragments that had been collected superficially arrived at the Provincial Museum. In 1934 a teacher discovered a complete urn at a sand extraction point . In 1938 a home keeper found an imperial urn and the remains of 15 other vessels. Through further sand extraction, bones, charcoal, ceramics and bronze parts came to light again and again. In the 1930s it was assumed that the remains of a prehistoric settlement had been found, as layers of charcoal in the ground were regarded as the remains of burned houses. In fact , the remains of the pyre were concerned , with the corpse burn in the lime-poor soil of the dune being largely consumed by the vegetation.
Excavations
The reason for a more detailed archaeological investigation of the dune area was an event in 1953. A teacher presented the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover with important finds from a grave that he had discovered at a sand mining site. A brick factory from neighboring Wellie had started digging large areas of sand, probably destroying hundreds of grave sites. Today there is a sand pit at this point . The finds that were handed over were the remains of an old Saxon warrior with a spathe , shield , lance and ango . Immediate re-excavation of the state museum at the site of discovery resulted in further graves. It quickly became clear that one had come across a burial ground from the 4th to 9th centuries AD, which was significant for the cultural history of Old Saxony in northern Germany .
During the archaeological rescue excavations carried out in 1953 and 1954, ten body graves and several cremation burials were found. The excavations were financially modest and served primarily as a probe to expand the burial ground. It was found that the sand mining that had taken place up to then had already destroyed the central section of the burial ground. Another excavation took place in 1957 when an archaeologist discovered a significant body grave. The excavations were intensively resumed in 1958, when the brickworks owner from Wellie wanted to considerably expand the sand mining area on the dune. This led to annual investigations which, despite generous support from the tenant of the site, various institutions, authorities and funding from the Lower Saxony Lotto Foundation, turned out to be unsystematic rescue excavations. Because of the modest means, it was a race against sand mining. Between the excavation campaigns, there was destruction due to the removal of sand by unauthorized persons in the excavation area.
Only when the excavation became a priority program of the German Research Foundation in 1965 did the excavation, the preparation of the finds and the scientific description progress rapidly with sufficient personnel and equipment. The excavations continued with interruptions until 1989. During the excavations, which lasted over 35 years, not the entire cemetery was excavated and further areas are suspected to be in the ground. The prehistorian Albert Genrich played a key role in the excavations .
Graves
551 people were assigned to the 522 body and cremation graves found. Among them were 123 men and 248 women; the gender could not be determined in about 100 other people. Twelve horse burials and five dog graves were found on the cemetery. The horses, of which bones were found, were wedged in small grave pits. The bodies of the dogs were completely gone and could only be recognized by the corpse shadow. The animal burials were close to human graves, so that the buried were possible owners. It can be assumed that the animals were a status symbol of wealthy elites.
Incendiary graves
In 312 cremation graves with 338 burials, they were cremated through a pyre made of wood. The remains of the fire were left at the cremation site and covered with sand. The ashes were usually buried in urns only occasionally. Nevertheless, there were fragments of ceramic vessels presumably added to the fire at the cremation sites.
Body graves
There were 143 body graves in which the deceased were buried in coffins or wrapped in blankets and furs. It was noticeable that there were hardly any graves of children and young people. In the graves from the 4th and 8th centuries, the dead were buried in a north-south direction, with the head mostly facing south.
Grave goods
Grave goods from the men's graves were mainly weapons such as sax , spathe , shield and lance . They came from the 5th to 7th centuries with a focus on the 6th century. Some weapons came from the Franconian and Alemannic areas.
In women's graves, jewelry was mainly found as an addition. Among them were primers of Saxon, Thuringian , Alemannic and Franconian origin. There were also chains made of amber and glass beads, finger rings, necklaces and bracelets. More than 3000 pieces of pearls were found in 51 body and 168 cremation graves, including up to 400 pearls in one grave. Other additions were spinning vertebrae that were used to spin wool.
Both sexes included fire irons and knives as well as elaborately decorated vessels and tweezers . The ceramic vessels that were included, which were preserved in body graves and in shards of shards in cremation graves, were mostly of a simple type. In many cases the ceramic showed signs of use, for example from cooking. The simple pottery found differs from the richly decorated, Saxon hump pottery.
Findings and evaluation
With the excavations of the old Saxon cemetery in Liebenau, which began in 1953, a mixed-use cemetery could be identified for the first time. Mixed evidence means that the two burial rites of cremation and body burial have been practiced side by side over a longer period of time.
The burial ground is of particular importance in that it was constantly occupied from the 4th to the 9th century. In contrast to this, the population on the North Sea coast thinned out around the year 500 (emigration of the Anglo-Saxons ) and is only more clearly evident again from 800 onwards.
A period of almost 500 years was established as the occupancy of the burial ground. With around 550 burials found, this represents about one burial per year. This means that it is a smaller cemetery complex of no central importance. When converting the graves to the population, it is assumed that there are at least 30 people living at the same time in an associated, not yet found settlement. In the case of the Liebenau cemetery, it was estimated that 60 people were living at the same time, which is the size of a small village with five to seven courtyards. The buried could also have come from scattered hamlets .
Anthropological studies on the bone remnants showed that the life expectancy was apparently 35 years. If you include the shortage of child burials, the average life expectancy is only 23 years, which was typical in these premodern times. In individual cases there were people aged 60 or over, but most people died before the age of 50. Dental diseases such as periodontal disease were not uncommon among the Liebenau Old Saxons.
today
Today (2014) the excavation area presents itself as a small wooded area between the state road L 251 and the Große Aue. In the front area towards the road there is a larger sand pit with a sharp edge that was created before the excavation. Here the vegetation has regained a foothold as a light forest with open spaces. Today it is used by an archery club . In 2010, a partial replica of a Germanic- Saxon outbuilding was built on the sand pit area , which is semi-open and serves as a refuge . In addition, there are several display boards that provide information about the excavations and the further historical background. In the rear area on the dune hill, the forested terrain is slightly undulating and covered with mounds of earth, which obviously originate from the excavations.
The exhibits have been on display in the Nienburg Museum since 1999, initially in an exhibition entitled "A burial ground tells history, archaeologists visit the Old Saxons on the Heidberg near Liebenau" and which were integrated into the permanent exhibition in 2015.
Around 2006 the municipalities of Liebenau and Steyerberg developed plans for the tourist use of the burial ground. They were later implemented in the form of guided tours of the site, during which the guides wear historical costumes from the Saxon period. In Liebenau and Steyerberg from 2015 to 2017 so-called Old Saxony events took place, at which life in the 4th to 9th centuries was shown in the form of living history .
The partial reconstruction of a Germanic-Saxon auxiliary building in the sand pit on the site of the find, built in 2010
Sand pit today as an archery range, behind the sharp edge that shows the height of the dune
Old Saxony camp in Steyerberg, information tent on the excavations, 2016
Living history at the Altsachsenlager in Steyerberg, 2016
Further investigations in the area
In 2015, about 2 km east of the burial ground, a three-week excavation was carried out by the University of Göttingen as part of the “ehrenWERT” project of the Hanover monastery chamber . It applied to the settlement belonging to the burial ground. The Saxon-Carolingian settlement of Liebenau from the 8th to 9th centuries was uncovered through metal and ceramic finds as well as wagon tracks and post holes . The archaeological association RAUZWI - Lebendige Archäologie Mittelweser, founded in 2016, began to build a courtyard from the old Saxon era at the grave field . The first building to be built was a pit house in 2017 . The excavations on the area of the previous settlement continued in the following years. In 2017, fragments of ceramic vessels, pieces of fire clay and (metal) slag as well as spindle whorls and a knife were found.
See also
literature
- Albert Genrich : The Liebenau cemetery and its significance for the settlement and cultural history of the Central Weser region in: Die Kunde NF 11, 1960, pp. 60–65.
- Albert Genrich, Alfred Falk: Liebenau. A cemetery in Saxony . Lax, Hildesheim 1970, ISBN 3-7848-1903-6 .
- Albert Genrich: The mixed cemetery near Liebenau, Nienburg district . tape 1 . Lax, Hildesheim 1972.
- Erhard Cosack , Hans-Jürgen Häßler : The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, Kr. Nienburg (Weser) . No. 1 . Mann, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-7861-1297-5 .
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau . No. 2 . Lax, Hildesheim 1983, ISBN 3-7848-1615-0 .
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, Kr. Nienburg (Weser) . No. 3 . Lax, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-7848-1616-9 .
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, Kr. Nienburg (Weser) . No. 4 . Lax, Hildesheim 1990, ISBN 3-7848-1618-5 .
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, Kr. Nienburg (Weser) . Individual studies and scientific research results. No. 5 . Lax, Hildesheim 1994, ISBN 3-9803657-0-0 .
- Gregor Schlicksbier: The ceramics of the Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, Nienburg / Weser district . Isensee, Oldenburg 1997, ISBN 3-89995-010-0 .
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: A burial ground tells history, archaeologists visit the Old Saxons on the Heidberg near Liebenau . Accompanying document to an exhibition of the Prehistory Department of the Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover in the Museum Nienburg, Ldkr. Nienburg (Weser). Isensee, Oldenburg 1999, ISBN 3-89598-543-0 .
- Erhard Cosack: What became of a "lady" . In: Archeology in Lower Saxony . 2004, pp. 80-81.
- Hans-Jürgen Häßler: The Saxon burial ground near Liebenau, district Nienburg (Weser) In: Mamoun Fansa, Frank Both, Henning Haßmann (editor): Archeology | Land | Lower Saxony. 400,000 years of history. State Museum for Nature and Man, Oldenburg 2004. Pages 447–451.
Web links
- Tourist offer with guided tours of the burial ground
- Website of the association RAUZWI - Lebendige Archäologie Mittelweser eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerd Lübbers: Medieval settlement near Liebenau, Nienburg district, Lower Saxony at: Circle of Friends for Archeology in Lower Saxony from 2016
- ↑ Teaching excavation 2015 Liebenau at hobbyausgrabung.de
- ↑ Where should the courtyard be built?
- ^ Gerd Lübbers: excavation of a Saxon-Carolingian settlement. Liebenau FStNr. 25, Landkreis Nienburg in: FAN-Post 2018 of the Friends of Archeology in Lower Saxony , pp. 40–41 ( online , pdf)