Hercules club (amulet)

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A Hercules club or Donarskeule is a trapezoidal or club-shaped amulet from Roman times and the early Middle Ages .

Hercules clubs

Hercules clubs have been widespread in the Roman provinces , especially since the 3rd century . Most of the specimens are made of gold. They can be recognized not only by their club shape, but also by the decoration with more or less naturalistic knobs. On a copy from Cologne-Nippes there is an inscription DEO HER (culi), which confirms a connection with the protective god Hercules . In the case of the Hercules clubs, a distinction is made between smaller (often less than 3 cm long), often solidly cast pieces and larger (often over 5 cm long) specimens made of sheet gold. The smaller ones were probably mostly worn as earring, the larger as a pendant.

Donarskeulen

Donarskeulen, Lower Bavarian Archaeological Museum, Landau an der Isar

In the 5th to 7th centuries , Donarskeulen spread very quickly from the Elbe-Germanic area across Europe, but without showing a spatial and temporal connection to the Greco-Roman specimens.
Due to formal similarities and a comparable use in graves , a derivation from the Greco-Roman culture can be assumed. The club is an attribute of the vegetation god Hercules and was worn there as a symbol of growth and fertility .
Donarskeulen were made from the tips of antlers and, more rarely, from bone , wood , bronze or precious metal . They were decorated with incised, simple line patterns or circular eyes . Donarskeulen have only been found in women's and girls' graves, in the pelvic area and occasionally in the temporal area of ​​the dead. The Donarskeulen in the pelvic area were worn clearly visible on small iron or bronze rings on the belt hangers . Presumably they were also worn as earring or temple ring on the headdress. Donarskeulen have not yet been discovered in men's graves. Since they were often found together with tiger snails , a popular symbol for the vulva , they are also interpreted as growth and fertility amulets.

With the increasing Christianization in the 8th century , Thor's hammer and cross-shaped pendants replace the Donarskeule as a protective amulet, especially in northern Europe.

German Hercules

In Germania, Tacitus mentioned Hercules as a Germanic god alongside Mars .

Johannes Aventinus mentions a "German Hercules" under the name Alman :

“The last king in Germania Alman, the German Hercules, a hero and great warrior ruled in the 64th year, of which our old father sang German rhymes: He brought a living lion around with him, hence the common man Arkle and Aerkle, that is, the hero with the wicked lion called, made of them the Romans of their kind like Hereules "

The name Alman may be the name of the Alemanni derived.

Philipp von Zesen derived the name of Lake Geneva Lacus Lemannus from this Alman or Alamannus , as did the names Almansweiler and Almanshofen . In the legend, the name of Allmannsdorf near Konstanz is explained by a "Hungarian gentleman, Alman von Stoffen", who is said to have lived there during the reign of Septimius Severus .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tac. Historiae IV, 64.
  2. ^ Johann Just Winckelmann , Thorough and Warhaft Description of the Principalities of Hesse and Hersfeld (1711 [1697]), p. 33.
  3. ↑ Philipp von Zesen, Coelum astronomico-poeticum ed.Hans -Gert Roloff (2011), p. 355 .
  4. ↑ Johann Marmor: Historical topography of the city of Constance and its immediate surroundings . 1860, p. 5 ( google.ch ).
  5. ↑ Johann Marmor: Yearbook of the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland . tape 60 , 1877, p. 29 ( google.ch ).

literature

  • Rudolf Noll: Two Roman grave finds from Romania in the Vienna Collection of Antiquities. Yearbook RGZM 31, 1974, 435–454.
  • Joachim Werner: Hercules clubs and Donar amulet , in: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 11, 1964, p. 176 ff.