Fire grave

A fire grave is a burial place in which the more or less burned human bones and grave goods or remnants of them were collected in an urn . In addition, containers made of organic material were also used, which are mostly past today and so result in no or only minimal archaeological evidence. The remaining fire debris from the pyre was mostly scattered around it or over the urn. This separation of the ashes from the rest and the use of a vessel differentiates the fire- filled grave from the fire pit grave in which the cremation remains were buried unsorted.

Such graves were widespread above all in prehistoric and early historical times, but also among the Romans , especially in burial grounds from the imperial period and up to the Merovingian period . Since the grave pits were often not too deep, many former fire graves were probably destroyed by construction, erosion or the plow.

literature

• Tilmann Bechert: On the terminology of Roman provincial cremation graves. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt , 10/1980, Verlag des Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums , Mainz 1980, ISSN  0342-734X , p. 253ff.

Web links

• Roman burial grounds ( Memento from April 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
• Two Lengyel graves from Lower Austria (PDF file; 6.98 MB)