Construction sacrifice

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A dog walled in alive at Burgk Castle when it was built

A foundation deposits is a before or during the construction of buildings devout victims . It is intended to secure the existence of the structure or to promote the purpose pursued with the construction. The transitions from building sacrifice and sacrifice to the worship of a house spirit or even to the cult of the dead are fluid. A secure identifier is that the victim is placed under the floor or the stove or under the wall so that it remains invisible.

Prehistory and early history

Cultic landfills within the house and the house construction have been linked to Neolithic buildings since the introduction of agriculture and livestock farming. In research, the landfills are considered construction victims. These are stone implements that are found individually or in groups, mostly complete vessels and skeletons or partial skeletons of humans and animals.

In southern Scandinavia, a custom was revealed in the course of the Neolithic , which can be characterized by the laying down of so-called building sacrifices. The findings and their sequence of distribution make it clear that ideas from south-eastern Europe reached the north. But the origins of the ideas are to be sought in the Levant . From there they seem to have penetrated into Europe.

The majority of such finds come from post pits , which prove that the building process was simultaneous. The preferred dumping site was the pits in the corner posts, which have more than a third of the findings.

Further dumping took place in the wall moats or under the floor. In terms of numbers, stone tools, especially hatchets, are predominant. The importance of axes in prehistoric times and the superstitious treatment of hatchet finds up to modern times are well known. For this reason, a multitude of interpretations can be considered for the depositing of the annex. A resignation as a construction sacrifice cannot be ruled out. In the Neolithic, clear trends can be seen in the accumulation of landfills over time. Findings of this type still appear sporadically with the Early Neolithic, their number already increased in the Middle Neolithic. Also megaliths seem to have been honored with Bauopfern to be (Sh. Megaliths of Hagestad ). The majority of the findings, however, come from the late Neolithic.

Early Neolithic settlement of Sofia-Slatina

A finding from the beginning of the 6th millennium comes from the early Neolithic settlement of Sofia- Latina, in Bulgaria . A ground-level post structure with a slightly trapezoidal floor plan and around 17 m² of floor space was excavated, the walls of which were plastered with clay and consisted of posts and wattle. It is a two-room house, as it is typical for Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements in this area. The tiny northern part of the house was interpreted as a workshop and warehouse. The southern room was a study, bedroom and living room. There was a fireplace, a dome stove, a platform, a loom, a grinding stone with a flour pan in front, 18 storage vessels and two wooden bed frames.

Several finds in the building indicate cultic laying down. Initially, a small clay model was found in the southwest corner of the smaller area, which can be viewed as a miniature altar, but which the excavator referred to as a house model and interpreted as the cultic abode of the domestic guardian spirit. In the northwest corner of the main room, a complete clay bowl was discovered under the floor, in which food residues could be found. The bowl was decorated with a white painting, which the excavator interpreted as a "fertility wreath" and the finding is interpreted as a construction sacrifice.

In a recess in the south wall was a beehive-shaped niche measuring 10 × 26 cm and a depth of 18 cm at a height of 1.8 m. Immediately below the niche, two small clay figures (a woman and a bull - goddess and god) were discovered that probably originally stood in the niche. Finally, in the middle of the house, next to the three posts, there was a cylindrical, about 35 cm deep, empty pit with a diameter of 40 cm, which according to V. Nikolov possibly served to hold food offerings and indicates the performance of cult acts. Deposits of animal bones or complete animal skeletons can only be verified in isolated cases within the building.

Tape ceramics

In the ceramics settlement Cologne-Lindenthal , flint artifacts were found in some wall trenches. In the wall trench of building no. 50, close to the northeast corner post, there were three large flint blades that, according to the excavators Werner Buttler and Waldemar Haberey, may be interpreted as building victims.

In Hienheim , Bavaria , the floor plan of a 15.60 × 5.90 m building (No. 29) of the younger line ceramic was found. A type IIa adze was stuck in a wall post pit, with the round side pointing downwards. The extremely well-preserved piece and the circumstances of the find prompt the processor to speak of a construction sacrifice.

Stitch band ceramics

A depot of three stone axes and a semi-finished product was found in the post pit of the ceramics house floor plan No. 1 from Stary Zamek ( Altenburg, Wroclaw district ) in Lower Silesia. The cutting edges all point in a north-westerly direction. According to M. Rech, this find can be classified in the ritually interpreted Neolithic Beildepots, which, however, have a special function.

A direct analogy comes from the ceramics discovery site of Mšeno , Okres Mělník in Bohemia. Here one found in the post pit 52 of the house No. 1 a depot consisting of two polished hatchets and two slate hammer axes , the edges of which, which showed signs of use, faced north and north-west.

Lengyel

In the early 1960s, J. Vladár examined the Lengyel settlement of Branč in Slovakia . One found u. a. five large houses (about 30 × 8 m). In one of them, a spondylus bracelet was found in the northeast corner post hole , which the excavator considers to be a foundation stone sacrifice. In a further building, the approximately 12 cm long clay model of a half-pit hut was laid on the bottom of the northeast corner post hole. M. Rech sees this in a particularly impressive way as the defensive component of the building sacrifice. For Hermann Müller-Karpe , too, the finding is a construction victim. In this context he refers to pits lying in pairs near the north side of the building, which the excavator interprets as sacrificial pits and whose strikingly regular stratification (15–20 layers) consisted of ashes, remains of vessels, charcoal and animal bones.

Denmark and southern Sweden

Troldebjerg

Early findings of this kind appear sporadically with the onset of the funnel beaker culture (TBC) in Denmark . Tool depots were found in the wall trenches of several house remains of the Middle Neolithic settlement Troldebjerg , on Langeland . So in the wall moat of house No. XXV a raw, unpolished flint ax placed flat between supporting stones. Its cutting edge points south. According to the excavator, it was a fleeting and purpose-built piece that was supposed to act as lightning protection. J. Brønsted also attributes lightning protection magic to the flint axes found under the house walls. A flint ax was found in the wall trenches of Houses VIII, B and C, and a flint chisel was also found in the latter. In the north of Troldebjerg, horseshoe-shaped house floor plans with fireplaces up to 1.85 m in diameter were excavated, which did not consist of field stones, as usual, but of partially crushed stones. They were separated from their surroundings by a thin layer of gravel, which the excavator believes indicates a special function.

About 60 cm from this so-called "sacred fireplace" was a 35 × 40 cm large pit that was sunk about 18 cm into the ground. On the bottom of the pit stood a carefully ground, thin-pointed flint ax, supported by small stones vertically with the edge pointing upwards. Next to it stood the bottom of a vessel that was intact when it was laid down, because the other shards were found in the pit filling. The finding led to different interpretations:

  • For Jens Winther the ax represents the god himself, to whom sacrifices were made in the vessel. According to Winther, this refers to a god of thunder who, as the god of fertility, is called upon for good harvests in early summer.
  • According to Johannes Brøndsted (1890–1965) the hatchet god stood here, next to whom a food or libation was placed
  • For Hermann Hinz (1916–2000) it is a home shrine. The laying down speaks for a cultic act or a place with a certain veneration. A construction sacrifice, as Torsten Capelle suspects, excludes Hinz.
  • Hermann Müller-Karpe (1925–2013) described the findings more cautiously as a sign of a ritual act.

Blandebjerg

Parallels to the combination of ax / hatchet and ceramic vessel can be found on other funnel-shaped sites. Between 1939 and 1942 a settlement of the younger funnel cup culture was excavated in Blandebjerg on Langeland. There J. Winther discovered a 40 × 35 cm large and 30 cm deep pit, which he describes as the "sacrificial pit". On the bottom of the pit there was an ax on edge and next to it the vertical half of a decorated vessel. The broken ax was a semi-finished product that was not sharpened and without a shaft hole. H. Müller-Karpe and T. Capelle consider it to be a construction sacrifice, although no connection to a house floor plan is recognizable. A parallel comes from the early Neolithic house No. 2 of Tygapil, in Skåne in southern Sweden. Here a round recess was found about in the middle of the house under the floor, on the bottom of which a small, polished, thin-nosed flint ax and an intact funnel cup about 10 cm high were deposited.

Bornholm

During the late funnel cup culture, there are further deposits within the house and its construction. In 1979, in Runegård on Bornholm , Middle Neolithic findings were discovered in a settlement from the Iron Age. Post pits in the northern and western part of the excavation area, which could not be joined to a house floor plan, had a round shape with depths between 60 and 70 cm. On the basis of which the post is concluded to have a roof-bearing function. In one of the post pits there was a small funnel cup with the mouth up, the bottom part of which was missing. In another was a roughly hewn ax with a broken edge. In 1985, a mid to late Neolithic settlement was excavated in Limensgård on Bornholm. The slightly trapezoidal east-west oriented house floor plan AA with a length of about 16 m was examined, the narrower side of which was in the west. The five center posts were 2.5 to 3.0 m apart and were recessed 30 to 45 cm. There was a fireplace between the center posts 31 and 32. A 21.3 cm long flint chisel was found in the post pit 31, which, according to the excavators, is to be addressed as a house sacrifice, as it was deliberately dumped. About. 20 m south of the house AA was discovered the also Middle Neolithic house floor plan marked Y. It is a disturbed southern part of the house, about 18 m long and 6.2 m wide. The five roof-bearing central posts were deepened by a maximum of 50 cm. In the roof-bearing post pit no. 13 there was a 9.7 cm long flint blade with signs of wear. An arrowhead with a retracted base was found in a post pit of the 40 m long nave S. A small, partially polished flint ax lay in a post pit in House R.

Fosie

In the late Neolithic there are numerous devices found in post pits and wall courses that are multi-piece landfills or were deposited in several places within the house. The Swedish site of Fosie IV, in Skåne, brought rich finds in post pits and wall courses. In the approximately 14 m long house floor plan No. 11 a scraper was found, in a southern wall post a flint blade, in the south-western corner post and in each post in the north wall an unspecified worked device. In house 12 there were a particularly large number of equipment finds in the post pits, but it was difficult to determine whether they were to be regarded as regular victim finds or whether they were artefacts that were unintentionally found in the post pits when the house was built. These are individual finds of scrapers (including a miniature scraper and a scraper fragment), a flat heart-shaped arrowhead, an indeterminable worked flint tool and a dagger fragment. A scraper, two drills and a retouched flint were found in the northeast corner post. The editors see evidence of a sacrifice in finding 756 of house no. 13, which resulted in several post hole finds. It is a post hole in the south wall in which two broad-edged flint axes lay. According to N. Björhem and U. Säfvestad, the fact that the axes (of poor quality) were next to each other in the upper part of the post pit speaks in favor of a victim find. At the same time, this means that the external form and the act of alienation were the essentials and not the quality of the sacrifice. M. Rech also found something similar for the quality of the material used in axes found in deposits. For house no. 16 shows five post pits with equipment finds. They are drills, arrow straighteners , dagger tips, scrapers and sickles. In longhouse no. 95 the well-worked flint dagger of type III lay in the post pit 4254. Since the excavators assume a subsequent expansion of the building, the post 4254 was originally the southwest corner post. In the southeast corner post there was a bronze edging ax which, according to N. Björhem and U. Säfvestad, can be regarded as an unquestionable sacrifice. House No. 95 with an area of ​​180 m², was the largest in the settlement.

Myrhøj

House D in the settlement of Myrhøj on Jutland was a 7 × 14 m east-west oriented pit house. The corner posts could be occupied on its west side. The northwestern post hole contained three flint cuts, an ax cutter, a complete ax, two core stones and a knocking stone. A thick-naped broad-edged ax 15 cm long with the edge up was found standing upright in the northern wall ditch. J. Aarup Jensen speaks of a possible votive deposition.

Malmö-Bellevuegården

There are also examples of socialization within the post pits. In 1989 five axes were unearthed in a post pit of a late Neolithic house layout in Malmö-Bellevuegården, in Skåne. The findings from nave V of the late Neolithic settlement of Anten are seen as a parallel. There were also five flint axes and a naturally shaped flint with knock marks at both ends in the southwest corner post hole. The devices were made of bad flint and showed irregularities. 2.7 kg of pottery, a fire-damaged arrowhead, a whetstone fragment, a core stone and two scrapers come from a post hole on the roof of the same house. A vessel comes from a post pit inside the south wall.

Animal sacrifice

In Dingolfing-Unterbubach in Bavaria , the post and wall traces of an early Neolithic house with a length of at least 24 m were excavated. About three meters from the northeast corner, under the narrow side of the building, a one-meter-long pit was sunk into the wall ditch, in which the complete skeleton of a young red deer was deposited. On the skeleton was a 5.50 cm long, narrow flint blade. The finding is interpreted as a construction sacrifice.

A finding from the Neolithic settlement of Vučedol , Croatia, is a parallel to this find . Here, under the floor of the house, next to the entrance of a megaron house, at a depth of 1.6 m, was a pit in which the complete skeleton of a deer was found in anatomical association. From the forecourt of this house comes the find of a 12 cm long clay deer with a round bowl instead of antlers. According to Robert Rudolf Schmidt , the deer idol with the sacrificial bowl is to be understood as a symbol of the sacrificial cult, which, as the sacrifice under the house shows, was also practiced. There is a construction sacrifice for M. Rech.

Another find interpreted as a construction sacrifice comes from Postoloprty in Bohemia . A rectangular 0.45 × 1.00 m flagstone box was uncovered in the foundation trench of a trapezoidal ceramic house with a porch and main room. Inside were the bones of cattle and sheep / goats as well as fragments of a vessel. A pig's skull was laid over things. According to the excavator Bohumil Soudský , the findings can be interpreted as a founding depot.

Human sacrifice

According to the concise dictionary of German superstition , the original building victims were people "who were walled into the foundations alive". However, the authors only refer to episodic medieval and modern observations.

In Whitehawk , Sussex , the remains of a seven-year-old child were found in a post hole in the Causewayed camp under a roughly scratched slab. This find, like that of a three-year-old child with a broken skull in the center of Woodhenge , points to people as construction victims.

Antiquity

In his work on René Girard's mimetic theory, Wolfgang Palaver describes some examples of building sacrifices from ancient times to modern times. The best-known example is likely to have been the murder of Remus by Romulus , which laid the foundation for the city of Rome . In the biblical context it is of course also natural to think of Cain and Abel , where the refusal to accept a sacrifice is said to have been the reason for another sacrifice, this time in the form of a human sacrifice .

In Jos 6.26  EU of the man is from the curse by Joshua reported that Jericho is trying to rebuild, and in 1 Kings 16.34  EU tells how this curse in time King Ahab met when Hiel from Bethel rebuild Jericho and lost the eldest and the youngest son, each time the wall and the gate were erected.

Middle Ages and Modern Times

The uncertainty observed for prehistoric finds in the interpretation of "building sacrifices" often also applies to finds from medieval archeology. In particular, the walling in of people as a protective magic cannot be reliably and directly proven. Certain "substitute victims" seem to indirectly indicate older, more cruel practices: for example, small models of coffins with dolls from around 1710 were found walled up in the Schonenfahrerschütting in Lübeck. Landfills of (living?) Animals, especially dogs, can be proven several times (find from 1739 in the masonry of the second gatehouse of Burgk Castle from the early 15th century). The dumping of eggs could be viewed as a "moderate" variant of walling in something living. Occasionally, objects are found as building victims: vessels with food, a button and a master builder circle (Bremen Cathedral, 13th century), a Gothic reliquary cross (Paderborn, Cathedral). In Latvia , living beings were buried or walled up under a building as building victims. They should appease the genius loci or cause it to protect the building in question.

Today, documents and testimonies such as newspapers and coins are embedded in the foundation on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of public or church buildings, accompanied by three hammer blows.

Literary representations

  • In folk songs and legends, building sacrifices, and often human sacrifices, are often mentioned.
  • In Theodor Storm's novella Der Schimmelreiter (1888) the motif of the dike sacrifice plays an important role and perhaps reflects customs that were handed down, even if they were no longer practiced (“If your dike should hold, something living must be in it!… A child is better still; if that is not there, a dog will do it too! ”).

literature

  • Ines Beilke-Voigt : The victim in the archaeological evidence. Studies on the so-called building victims, cultic laying down and burials in prehistoric and early historical settlements in Northern Germany and Denmark (= Berlin Archaeological Research. Volume 4). Rahden / Westf. 2007.
  • N. Björhem & U. Säfvestad: Fosie IV. Byggnadtradition och bosättningsmönster under sennepolitikum. In: Malmöfynd. 5, Malmo 1989.
  • Rodney Castleden: The Stonehenge People: An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain, 4700-2000 BC London / New York 1990.
  • Hermann Hinz : Construction victims. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 2. Eds. J. Hoops, 1976, pp. 111-112.
  • Jens Aarup Jensen: Myrhøj, 3 hustomter med klokkebægerkeramik. Kuml 1972, 1973, pp. 61-122.
  • Andrejs Johansons: The building sacrifice of the Latvians. In: Arv , 18-19, 1962-1963, pp 113-136; Reprinted in: Andrejs Johansons: The patron of the court in the popular belief of Latvians. Studies on local, court and house spirits (= Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis / Stockholm Studies in comparative religion. 5). Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm 1964.
  • Ralph Merrifield: The archeology of ritual and magic. London, Batsford 1987.
  • Paul Sartori : About the building sacrifice. In: Journal of Ethnology. 30th year 1898, pp. 1–54.
  • R. Müller-Zeis: Greek construction victims and foundation depots (dissertation) 1994.

middle Ages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Er 0xen, som reprsesenterer Guden, til hvem der bringes offer i det lille Lerkar".
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Palaver : René Girard's mimetic theory . in the context of cultural theory and socio-political issues. In: Contributions to the mimetic theory . 3. Edition. tape 6 . Lit-Verlag, Vienna / Berlin / Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-8258-3451-7 , p. 230 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 8, 2011]).
  3. ↑ Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli: Concise dictionary of German superstition. Berlin [u. a.]: de Gruyter, 1927 ff. Article Bauopfer.
  4. ↑ Andrejs Johansons: The building sacrifice of the Latvians. In: Arv 18–19, 1962–1963, pp. 113–136, reprinted in: Andrejs Johansons: The patron of the court in the Latvian folk beliefs, studies of local, court and house spirits (= Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis / Stockholm Studies in comparative religion. 5). Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell 1964.
  5. ↑ For an overview s. Paul G. Brewster, The Foundation Sacrifice Motif in Legend, Folksong, Game, and Dance. Journal of Ethnology. 96/1, 1971, pp. 71–89, for Southeastern Europe Ion Taloş, The Walled Woman. Recent research on the Southeast European construction victim ballad. Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung 34, 1989, pp. 105–116, albeit with an emphasis on ethnic classifications that are outdated today.
  6. ^ Theodor Storm: The Schimmelreiter. 3rd edition, Berlin 1894, pp. 104 and 151.