Linkuhnen burial ground
The cemetery of Linkuhnen in East Prussia (today Rschewskoje in the rural community Timirjasewo in the Kaliningrad region ) with four superimposed burial layers from the 6th to 12th centuries was excavated between 1929 and 1931 by Carl Engel (1895-1947). The four-layer structure of the burial ground finds no parallels in the entire north, although two-layer structures are known in the Baltic States .
population
Little is known about the indigenous people of the area (historically the Schalauer and Žemaiten or Sarmanten). Sparse Stone Age finds of the Haff coast culture around the Curonian Lagoon show that the region has been around since at least 1000 BC. Was inhabited. The finds increase in the Bronze Age . Iron Age finds (300 BC to 1200 AD) indicate that the area was continuously inhabited.
Additions
The unusually rich grave goods, including many swords from the Ulfberht smithy, which was located on the Lower Rhine , allow a good structure.
On levels 1 + 2 there are exclusively indigenous grave goods, while levels 3 + 4 are overlaid with Scandinavian (initially Viking Age ) export goods, but further developed endemic bronzes remain. The armament (lances, swords) changes to imported pieces or to imitated Nordic forms. This is not the case with jewelry, although there are occasional horseshoe brooches. More than 50 Viking swords were found , a number that no other burial ground south of the Baltic Sea reaches. This wealth of finds implies that there must have been another Viking trading post between Wiskiauten in Samland and Grobin / Seeburg in Kurland, in the area of the Memel estuary , whose name, like that of the old camp near Menzlin, has not been passed down. The wealth of the residents is expressed in the fact that the dead were given an enormous amount of bronze jewelry. Men's graves were equipped with up to six swords and about a dozen lance tips. A rare finding was a horse lying vertically, which is far more common in the other Prussian tribes. Sheep or goats were also given to the cremated dead.
Time position
The individual layers of Linkuhnen are usually stratigraphically separable, so that at least three chronological horizons result. The lowest level (1) contained body burials in tree coffins , while cremation (partly in wooden boxes) took place in the three upper levels. The body graves could be dated to the 6th to 8th centuries based on the additions. The second level (2), that of the early cremation, is clearly the 9th century. The two upper levels (3 + 4) cannot be clearly separated and belong to the 10th to 12th centuries. There were also double burials of men and women here, which indicates an old Baltic widow burial.
literature
in order of appearance
- Birger Nerman : Gotland's trade with the area on the Curonian Lagoon in the 11th century . In: Prussia. Zeitschrift für Heimatkunde und Heimatschutz , Vol. 29 (1931), pp. 160-173.
- Carl Engel : The four-story cemetery of Linkuhnen . In: Fornvännen , ISSN 0015-7813 , Jg. 27 (1932), pp. 168-177.
- Norbert Goßler, Christoph Jahn: Vikings and Balts on the Memel. The excavations of the prehistoric cemetery of Linkuhnen in East Prussia 1928–1939 (= Studies on the Settlement History and Archeology of the Baltic Sea Regions, Vol. 16). Wachholtz, Kiel 2019, ISBN 978-3-529-01376-8 .