Lead car from Frög
The lead car of Frög is from lead -made model of a panel van , which in Hallstatt grave in the cemetery of Frög (municipality Rosegg in Carinthia ) was found.
Location and circumstances
The car was found on May 31, 1883 in a barrow in the northern part of the burial ground. The hill bears the number 1488/1 in older plans and number 7 in the Tomedi counting, and is one of the most prominent hills in this area. At the time of the excavation in 1883, it had a diameter of 17 m and a height of about 2 m. The excavator, the Rosegger Wilhelm Kokail, cut a roughly 1.5 m wide cut through the hill. In the center of the hill, at a depth of 2 m, i.e. at ground level, he found two urns with corpse fire, in between the remains of lead figures, among them the miniature wagon. The urns have not been preserved.
Components and reconstruction
The car was not completely preserved when it was recovered. The exact positional relationships of the parts in the grave are not known. The four wheels have been preserved in fragments. They have a diameter of 6.2 to 6.4 cm, wide rims and 10 spokes . The axles are in good condition. Each axle block carries two vertical supports, one axle has a central yoke. The structure that must have been on these pillars is only fragmentary. It was a jacked-up car. Axle block, yoke and supports are to be connected to each other by a plug-in system, a construction unusual for this time, which is only known from another small car from southern Italy.
Some sheet-like parts of the structure have been preserved. They are interpreted as the remains of the car body: a base plate with a side wall around 1 cm high. The box has a width of 60 mm and a length of 20 cm, the center distance is about 15 cm. The exact appearance of the car cannot be reconstructed. A large, Y-shaped part is now interpreted as a carriage tree and also fits the new reconstruction from 2002. The part used to be a drawbar . An exact dating is not possible due to the improper recovery. The classification in the 7th century BC is considered certain. Because of the iron elements in the base, it is more likely that it was dated around 600 BC. BC, so towards the end of the occupation time of the grave field of Frög.
12 small animal models that were found with the wagon were long interpreted as draft animals. However, they are only 7 cm long and about half the height of a wagon wheel. In addition, almost only two teams, at most four teams, are known from the Hallstatt period. Today they are interpreted as not belonging to the car. They are poorly preserved, their identity is given sometimes as horses, sometimes as cattle.
interpretation
In today's reconstruction, the lead car corresponds exactly to the well-known cult car from the Hallstatt period, such as the car from Ohnenheim in Alsace or the queen's tomb of Vix in Burgundy. An interpretation as a car with a sacrificial kettle, as in the Strettweg cult car, is now considered rather unlikely.
The following scenarios are discussed as the symbolic meaning of a Hallstatt float, a time without streets:
- The car was used to drive to the burial site or to be transferred to the realm of the dead.
- Pictorial representations allow the interpretation of floats for ceremonial circumnavigations, such as images of gods. This has been handed down in literary terms from Tacitus (Germania, 10 and 40) and Virgil (Georgica, 3.531-533).
Research history
Kokail gave the lead figures to the writer Franz Kanitz, who recognized the importance of the find and passed it on to the Carinthian State Museum . Kanitz also published the first work on the car and assembled the parts into a car. In the State Museum, the car, together with the figures initially interpreted as draft animals and the other lead figures, is still a highlight of the archaeological collection.
In 1986 the car was restored in the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz under Markus Egg and the reconstruction was thoroughly revised, but not all parts could be assigned. Egg left open the interpretation as a state or tank car. In 2002, in the course of a new restoration, the parts not added in 1986 could be assigned. The reconstruction now suggested the interpretation as a show car and not a tank car.
supporting documents
- Markus Egg : To the lead car from Frög in Carinthia . Carinthia I, Volume 178, 1988, pp. 15-30. (Reprint from: Four-wheeled wagons from the Hallstatt period . Studies on history and technology / Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Research Institute for Prehistory and Early History, Volume 12, Mainz 1987)
- Paul Gleirscher : To the lead car from Frög near Rosegg. Tank wagons or floats . Arheološki vestnik, Volume 55, 2004, pp. 251-266. ( Online ; PDF; 2.9 MB)
- Paul Gleirscher: Cars without roads. To the lead car from Frög near Rosegg. Rudolfinum. Yearbook of the State Museum of Carinthia 2006, Klagenfurt 2008, pp. 23–28. ISBN 978-3-900575-38-0
- Otto H. Urban : The long way to history. The prehistory of Austria. (= Austrian history up to 15th BC). Ueberreuter Verlag, Vienna 2003, pp. 249-251, ISBN 3-8000-3969-9