Ganglegg
| Ganglegg | ||
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| height | 1142 m slm | |
| location | South Tyrol , Italy | |
| Mountains | Ötztal Alps | |
| Coordinates | 46 ° 40 '20 " N , 10 ° 35' 25" E | |
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The Ganglegg is an inconspicuous, elongated slate hilltop covered by moraine debris on the Sonnenberg above Schluderns in Vinschgau in South Tyrol . On the 1142 m high Ganglegg, the remains of a fortified hilltop settlement from the Bronze and Iron Ages were examined in a multi-year excavation campaign starting in 1997 and researched very thoroughly.
etymology
The name is derived from the expression "Gangl", which means something like pen , a walled enclosure in which grazing animals are temporarily herded together. The second part, "Egg" means hill or knoll.
Location and access
The Ganglegg is located to the west above the confluence of the Matscher valley and the Adige valley . The Ganglegg can only be reached on foot. The quickest option is the easy-to-walk path from the valley floor at the torrent barrier behind the village of Schluderns , which overcomes the steep 200-meter-high valley slope in wide serpentines and leads directly to the Ganglegg. If a half-hour walk is estimated for this, it is a generous dimension that can also apply to slower hikers. Another variant is a ravine overgrown by a shrub arbor in many places from the Schludernser Kalvarienberg, which can be a bit slippery in wetter weather. Or you can combine a visit to the Ganglegg with a hike across the Leitenwaal, which brings the water from the Matscher Valley past the Ganglegg to the slopes of the Vinschger main valley. The Leitenwaalweg can be easily combined with the Berkwaal, which runs on the opposite side of the Matscher valley and irrigates the meadows above the Churburg .
History of the excavations
It was already clear to some humanistically educated people in the period before the First World War that something had to be found up there. Because in the middle of the 19th century an excellently preserved bronze helmet was found in the bed of the Saldurbach at the foot of the Ganglegg, which was assigned to the " Negau type ". The doctor Alois Wallnöfer and the school director Alois Menghin initiated the first excavations between 1911 and 1916 and made the first sketches of the remains of the wall and the findings. At that time the hill was bare and without any trees. Oswald, the son of Alois Menghin, published the results of his father's research after the First World War. This made the Ganglegg known to a wider audience.
From 1989 onwards, the amateur archaeologists Karl Pohl and Karl Wieser, under the supervision of the Office for Ground Monuments and the Bozen City Museum, again explored the area that was systematically reforested in the 1950s and, over the years, brought together a considerable collection that can be seen today in the Vintschger Museum in Schluderns is. With EU funding from 1997, excavations under the direction of the archaeologists Peter Gamper and Hubert Steiner were financed and carried out in the form of a joint project of several South Tyrolean provincial offices.
Results of the excavations
The extensive and systematically carried out excavations provide insights into all areas of life of the inhabitants of this hillside settlement: nutrition, way of life, farm animals, useful plants, living conditions, objects of daily use, type of economy, trade connections and cultural relations. So were millet , naked barley, emmer , spelled , einkorn , Spelzgerste, peas , broad beans , linseed and opium poppy , the crop of the Bronze Age . In the Iron Age , millet , rye and oats were added. A wooden shed with many compartments was found in a Bronze Age house, which served as a granary. Sheep and goats played a dominant role in the farm animals. But cattle, pigs and dogs were also kept. Evidence was even found that horses were not unknown either. Until the last centuries BC There was still no haymaking , so that in winter the straw of the grain fields and leaves were fed ("Schab"). It was not until the Iron Age that haymaking became common with the advent of the scythe . The hunt seems to have played a rather minor role. A particularly large number of bones and bone needles inscribed with runes of the Bozen alphabet were found on the Ganglegg .
The archaeologists were also able to draw conclusions about settlement sequences. The hillside settlement seems to have been abandoned twice for a long time. There are 4 periods of settlement:
- Copper Age (3300–2200 BC), the oldest find is a stone ax
- Middle and Late Bronze Age (14th – 13th centuries BC) and a high point in the time of the Laugen-Melaun culture (12th - 11th centuries). Then the settlement was abandoned
- Iron Age from 4th century to 16–15 BC Chr., Then abandonment of the settlement
- Late antiquity (2nd half of the 3rd century – 4th century AD) reactivation of the settlement as a result of the decreasing security situation.
You can see ...
The hill was densely populated at times. After the archaeological survey, however, many buildings were again covered with earth to protect them from external influences. Some of the remains of the building are visible to the public and covered with roofs. Parts of the west side of the hill are enclosed with a mighty stone wall. Show buildings have been erected on the hill to show the public what the houses look like. A large number of display boards make the area an educational trail worth seeing.
The Vintschger Museum in Schluderns
In 1985, the Vinschgau district community took up the idea of a valley museum in which typical Vinschger themes and archaeological finds were to be presented. A suitable building was found in Schluderns and bought by the municipality in 1989. Construction began in 1993, and at the end of 1996 it was handed over to the Vintschger Museum, an association founded specifically for this purpose. In 1997 the museum was opened. After the archaeological excavations on the Ganglegg were completed, the museum received the finds as a loan from the Office for Ground Monuments.
literature
- Peter Gamper, Hubert Steiner: The Ganglegg at Schluderns . Athesia, Bozen 1999, ISBN 88-8266-036-2 .
- Peter Gamper: The Latène period settlement on Ganglegg in South Tyrol . Leidorf, Rahden 2006, ISBN 978-3-89646-363-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Negau helmet
- ↑ http://dervinschger.it/artikel.phtml?id_artikel=3856&seite=2 Negau helmet
- ↑ http://www.vml.de/d/inhalt.php?ISBN=978-3-89646-363-0 A brief overview of what was found
- ^ Peter Gamper, Hubert Steiner: The Ganglegg near Schluderns, Athesia Publishing House, Bozen 1999, ISBN 88-8266-036-2
