Amber depot
Amber depots ( Danish Ravskat ) are a type of depot found in Denmark , Northern Germany and Poland , the raw or processed amber as jewelry z. B. contains pearls or their fragments. They are mainly limited to the Early and Middle Neolithic. While they have come down to us in large numbers from moor deposits, hardly any reliable finds are known from natural soil. Small animal or ax-shaped pendants are interpreted as totem symbols and are the only examples of small figurative sculptures from the Danish Stone Age .
Depots in the ground
Three large lumps of amber were found on Hirsholmene Ǿen in the Kattegatt , 100 m from the bank under large pebbles , but there is no chronological assignment here, as is the case for the largest amber object ( Swedish Bear ) in Sweden, a 124 mm long ax, which was probably not made until the end of the Stone Age was made. Another problem is the find of “Hellighøj” (holy hill) in Sindbjerg on Mors in Jutland , consisting of 24 pearls and some fragments that came loose in a hill. These could be additions to unrecognized earth graves, as these were only recognized as the second (main) grave form of the funnel cup culture (TBK) from 1917 . Amber beads, which were probably deposited together with stone or copper objects , come from Krusager in Jutland (five cut, thin-nosed flint axes , a pommel hammer ax and 1400 amber beads). In Årupgård , Jutland, 271 complete and 177 broken pearls were found in an eyelet jar alongside several copper objects. It was right under the sward, only about four kilometers from the famous Bygholm Depot , on a ridge. The Krusager depot was found in a place where numerous stones lay in the open field. The amber pearl deposit in one of the two long hills of Barkjær is to be regarded as a construction sacrifice . In 2005 a heavily weathered depot with about 5 kilos of amber in a block was recovered in a gravel pit near Sjørring west of Thysted in Thy .
Amber depots in the moor
In contrast to the finds in the ground, there are numerous deposits from bogs. They represent over 90% of all amber depots, almost all of which can be attributed to the TBK. Most of them came to light in the 19th century while cutting peat in North Jutland. Information about the location of the objects in the bog is available for many of the 37 Danish finds. The Strandbygaarde find came to light at a depth of 0.63 m. About a meter deep in the 2.2 m thick peat was a large ornate jar with over 3000 amber pearls in the depot on Hvilshøj. In Gaarden Silkeborg near Torslev, a vessel was found that contained around 4500 amber pearls at a depth of 0.5 m. The more than 4,000 pearls from the Torslev depot were located 0.45 m below the surface of the bog in a vessel. Mollerup's find was in an eyelet jar that was found free in the peat just 10 centimeters below the surface of the moor, it contained 12,849 amber pearls. Information on the depth of the find or the distance from the land is available for other depots.
From the description of the find it can be concluded that most of the vessels were deposited on the "former moor surface" and were initially visible from afar. This would be suggested by the fact that in the moor near Strandbjerggarde, Amt Ringkøbing, an unspecified number of amber beads lay in a circle. This is different with the find of Nergaard, which is significant due to its additional finds. Over 100 amber pearls and pieces lay in a vessel that came to light on the bottom of the moor just below the moor marl. The whole thing had been deposited in shallow water or in a layer of silt, otherwise the remains of a string and the hazelnuts wrapped around the vessel would not have been preserved. The amber was mostly in clay vessels, in the case of Læsten in a wooden vessel, so that there is no doubt that the finds were complete. In some cases, however, pearls or raw amber were found randomly distributed in a layer of peat, so that the possibility must be reckoned with that these reached the bog at intervals. Loose pearls from the Hundborg Mose, which were not found far from the edge of the moor, could speak in favor of sinking or dumping in the moor. In the case of the individual pieces that are regularly found in North Jutian peat cuttings - which have certainly not been lost - it is also conceivable that they were thrown into the moor from dry land.
In contrast, the moor geological location of the depot from Nerkzer according to Johannes Brøndsted is supposed to show that it was originally on dry land. It is also noticeable that the Tværmose find was recovered close to a large tree root on the sandy soil, which probably points to the original landfill near the shore. At the depot from Statshove Mose, which contained three flint axes and about 500 pieces of raw amber, there were a few wooden trunks or a thin tree trunk above and below the site. In two cases, several depots have been identified in the same section of bog, although it remains to be seen whether they took place at the same time. In Mollerup, a few meters away from the Ösenkruke, the shards of a decorated vessel were found, as well as a smaller amber depot about 125 meters away. In Skælskør, only a cubit away from the shards of a decorated eyelet vessel containing the amber pearls recovered from the spot, a second vessel with four or five pearls was revealed.
The number of objects in the amber depots varies. Basically, a combination with other materials was avoided. Exceptions are three depots: Hundreds of pieces of raw amber were found in Statshove Mose together with three scalloped, thin-nosed axes . In Klæstrup, in addition to pieces of amber jewelry, a thin, polished flint ax and flint shavings were found. A small depot in Moseby Præstegaardsmose contained several pearls and pieces of raw amber and a pierced dog's tooth as a pendant.
Apart from the atypical depot from the Statshove Mose, which only contained raw amber, the inventories of the depots can be divided into:
- which appear to consist of completely new or little-used pearls,
- which, in addition to unused, heavily worn or fragmentary pearls and other pieces of jewelry,
- which also contained preliminary work on various forms of jewelry or pieces of raw amber.
Around 80% of the depots, in which there is information about the processing stage and degree of preservation of the amber deposited, show, in addition to well-preserved pieces, heavily worn, damaged or only fragments of pearls, sliders and end pieces . With many of the fragments it can be clearly seen that they were literally rubbed or "sawed up" by the string through constant wearing on a necklace. The number of objects in the depots varies greatly. In addition to inventories that contain 13,000 pieces and can weigh up to 8.5 kg (Læsten) , there are those that only have a few hundred pieces and those that consist of barely more than half a dozen pearls. While it is difficult to imagine that the large depots were the property of an individual, this can be the case for the medium and small finds, especially since the amber chains found in early Neolithic dolmens and shallow graves are of similar sizes. In the case of the large depots, it must be taken into account that they mainly contain small, ring-shaped pearls, so that the Mollerup find, which contains around 13,000 pearls, weighs only 3840 grams, as it is composed almost exclusively of this pearl shape.
Single grave culture
While amber depots are almost exclusively assigned to the TBK, the find recovered after KW Struve under circumstances that are not exactly known in the Satruper Moor in Schleswig-Holstein can be assigned to the individual grave culture , which otherwise was not conspicuous by amber additions in German graves. It is said to have contained 76 pearls. However, only 32 cylindrical pearls and two perforated amber discs with a diameter of 6 to 6.6 cm have survived. These disks are only documented for the individual grave culture of the western Baltic region. They are particularly known from North Jutian graves, where, according to Peter Vilhelm Glob , they were primarily worn as men's jewelry until the time of the upper burial. A second, very similarly composed find from the moor of Stangerup on Falster is clear , which in addition to 75 tubular pearls contained four disc-shaped, perforated pieces of jewelry. The find from Janneby, Schleswig-Flensburg district, whose oval, hatchet-shaped pendants only have counterparts in the graves of the individual grave culture, should probably be included in this circle. It cannot be answered to what time these finds belong to. In analogy to the stone equipment depots, one will have to consider a late epoch.
literature
- Klaus Ebbesen: The Nordic amber hoards of the funnel cup culture In: Praehistorische Zeitschrift Volume 70, Issue 1, 1995 pages 32-89, ISSN 1613-0804 ,
- Manfred Rech: Studies on depot finds of the funnel cup and individual grave culture of the north Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979 ISBN 3-5290-1139-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Ebbesen, The Nordic amber hoards of the funnel cup culture. Prehistoric Journal 70/1, 1995, 51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/prhz.1995.70.1.32