Cemetery of Kriechau

Coordinates: 51 ° 14 ′ 32 ″  N , 12 ° 1 ′ 1 ″  E

Cemetery of Kriechau
location	Saxony-Anhalt , Germany
Location	Crawl
When	second half 5th century - 6th century
Where	Schkortleben Kriechau, Weißenfels / Saxony-Anhalt
displayed	Weissenfels Museum (Neu-Augustusburg Castle), permanent exhibition

The cemetery of Kriechau in Saxony-Anhalt from the Merovingian period , classified in the 5th and 6th centuries, was discovered and excavated in a gravel pit in 1941.

Find description

The cemetery of Kriechau from the Merovingian period , a complex of finds with a few body graves, was discovered in a gravel pit and excavated in 1941. The publication was carried out by Berthold Schmidt, who assigned the found material to stages II and III (450–600 AD). The most important finds from the burial ground, ceramics and lance parts, come from body graves. The Thuringian turntable ceramics , a jug and two bowls, remained almost intact.

The light to medium gray jug with a height of 26.2 cm and a diameter of 16.3 cm, the surface of which is porous, has a broken edge and a handle below the edge. The fragments from the jug were put back in. The material is baked clay, molded on the turntable. A gray to dark gray bowl of the same design with a height of 12 cm and a diameter of 19.8 cm is additionally provided with smooth ornaments on the edge and neck. There are also 4 radial, wide smoothing strips attached to the lower part. In another gray bowl from grave 3 with a height of 8.4 cm and a diameter of 16.2 cm, which is finely grouted, the originally existing smooth ornaments are corroded.

Two Germanic lance tips, one with a length of 20 cm, the other with a length of 47.5 cm, each consist of a metal tip with a full socket, the surface of which is scarred by corrosion. The material is iron, forged. Both the pottery and the lance tips were made and used during the Great Migration (375–568 AD).

exhibition

Grave finds from the Merovingian period from Kriechau - Thuringian turntable ceramics, here a jug and two bowls as well as two lance tips from body graves - are exhibited in the Prehistory and Early History department in the Museum Weißenfels (Neu-Augustusburg Castle).

Remarks

1. ↑ See Krug, Museum digital
2. ↑ See larger turntable bowl, Museum digital
3. ↑ See smaller turntable bowl, Museum digital
4. ↑ See smaller lance tip, Museum digital
5. ↑ See larger lance tip, Museum digital
6. ↑ See Museum digital, grave finds from the cemetery of Kriechau

literature

• Berthold Schmidt : The late migration period in Central Germany. Catalog. (Northern and Eastern part) (=  publications of the State Office for Archeology, State Museum for Prehistory Saxony-Anhalt . Volume 29 ). Niemeyer, 1976, ISSN  0863-7679 .
• Claudia Theune : Methodology of Ethnic Interpretation. Consideration for the interpretation of the grave finds from the Thuringian settlement area . In: Sebastian Brather (Hrsg.): Between late antiquity and early middle ages. Archeology of the 4th to 7th centuries in the West (=  Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Supplementary volumes ). tape 57 . de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020049-2 , p. 211-235 .