Galgebakken (Slots Bjergby)
The Galgebakken ( German gallows hill ) from Slots Bjergby , near Slagelse on the Danish island of Zealand belongs to the Hashøjene group of hills. It was a medieval court and the site of a so-called three-sleeper gallows . From the three-legged gallows were at the excavation by Peter Glob the foundations of field stone pile proven.
The hill is five meters high and about 50.0 m in diameter. It was originally a Bronze Age , later an Iron Age burial mound with a flat top . The oldest shape of the hill was only 1.5 m high, with a diameter of about 14.0 m. This hill hid a tree coffin . Eight cremation graves were later dug , some in small stone boxes or urns . They contained some bronze items . One stone was marked with a petroglyph in the shape of a hand.
In the Iron Age of the hills was increased by means of a packing stone, expanded to 22 m in diameter, taken with curbs and a Röse transformed. However, there was no burial in it. A central collapse funnel indicates that there was a central post with a fallen building stone next to it . Apart from urn graves, there was no subsequent activity in the hill. There was countless evidence that various activities, including house building, took place very close to the hill. Some other building stones, bones and shards from the time around 500 AD have been preserved from this period. The elevation to the historical level took place at the time of Gorm the Elder in the 10th century. Again it was only of an external nature, there was no intervention in the hill.
The last section in the history of the hill shows its use as a place of execution, which has lasted almost until our time. The last execution took place in 1847 when a mother and her 23-year-old son died for the murder of their husband and father. The account books report on older executions. They were fully confirmed by the excavation. About forty skeletons of hanged or beheaded men and women were discovered at the Galgebakken. The skeletons of the hanged man mostly lay on their backs, those of the decapitated lay on their chest with the severed heads between their legs. Sometimes a hand-forged nail was struck through the head and had been placed on a stake for a while.
Gallows of this type, on which three people could be hung at the same time , are also known from Poland (Kanth, Lower Silesia) and Switzerland (Emmenbrücke, Lucerne). The only completely preserved "three-sleeper" gallows in Germany is near Beerfelden in the Odenwald . It was built in 1597 in place of an older one.
There are two to four sleeper gallows. A four-sleepy gallows is shown on the Rottweiler Pürschgericht map from 1564. There is also a picture of one from Prenzlau in the Uckermark .
The place of execution or legal archeology deals with questions of medieval law enforcement.
literature
- Peter Vilhelm Glob : prehistoric monuments of Denmark . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1967, p. 172 ff .
Web links
Coordinates: 55 ° 22 ′ 31 ″ N , 11 ° 20 ′ 6 ″ E