Grave goods
A grave goods or "paraphernalia" are objects that intentionally a dead man into the grave were placed. Basically, grave goods occur primarily in cultures with pronounced conceptions of the afterlife and are mainly given to higher-ranking and / or wealthy people; poorer sections of the population usually went to the afterlife without any accompanying objects. Grave goods provide archeology with a variety of indications for the temporal and cultural allocation of finds and give valuable insights into the material and thought culture of that time.
Types of gifts
A distinction must be made between "real" and "fake" additions. “Unreal gifts”, also known as “gifts”, are the deceased's clothing, jewelry, weapons or everyday objects that he used during his lifetime. On the other hand, “real gifts” are items made or used specifically for burial, such as jewelry for the dead or special grave ceramics.
Sometimes the dead were buried not only with their personal belongings, but also with those gifts that were considered necessary for the journey to the afterlife . From the 4th century AD, these included real painted or artificial eggs as grave goods . In terms of cultural history, a distinction must be made between accessories. B. remains of victims who were carried out on the occasion of the burial and ended up in the grave, or the burial of relatives or followers in the sense of following into the dead. Objects accidentally caught in the backfill of the grave are also not intentional additions.
Additions to prehistoric and early historical cultures in Europe (examples)
Ancient and Mesolithic
Graves were furnished with graves as early as the Paleolithic , such as the double grave of Oberkassel near Bonn or that of the so-called Red Lady of Paviland . However, only a few graves from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic Age are known.
Neolithic
Neolithic graves are often furnished with grave goods. In the culture of ribbon ceramics , besides clay vessels, weapons , implements and jewelry are also documented additions. In the Neolithic cultures, beginnings of standardization can be seen in burial customs as well as in accessories, so rich male burials of the bell cup culture usually contained a copper dagger , one or more arm protection plates and arrowheads in addition to the ceramic bell cup . One of the most important grave finds of all comes from the grave field of Varna ( Bulgaria ) and is around 4500 BC. Dated.
Bronze age
Since the end of the Neolithic and the early Central European Bronze Age , objects made of metal have been among the additions. At the burial, the laboriously extracted metal was withdrawn from the community of the living. The so-called urn field culture is named after its characteristic burial fields, in which a ceramic vessel served as a container for the corpse burn.
Iron age
In the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture, there is evidence of a pronounced custom of gifts. So-called “princely graves” are known from the more recent Hallstatt culture - large burial mounds of important personalities that have been furnished with high-quality prestige goods. This includes new and sometimes not ready-to-use objects (e.g. gold objects) that were specially made for the burial, but also wagons, daggers and high-quality imported objects from the Mediterranean area: bronze vessels, Greek ceramics, even fabrics. Well-known sites are the princely grave of Hochdorf , the princess grave of Vix (France) and graves near the Heuneburg on the Danube. In the late Iron Age Latène culture , the custom of rich grave furnishings is regionally waning, and burials of the Hunsrück-Eifel culture are still very well equipped .
Antiquity: Greece and Rome
The custom of placing burials in the graves becomes tangible in Greek and Roman antiquity both through archaeological finds and written sources. In the South and East Asian cultural area, the cremation of corpses dominated already in antiquity , so that no grave goods are known from here.
The Greek culture
Homer already describes that burial objects (e.g. weapons) are also burned with the dead (Odyssey XI, 74; XII, 13). The belief that the ferryman Charon requires a coin to bring the dead across the underworld river Styx into the realm of the shadows is also rooted in Greek ideas of the afterlife . Coin additions on the eyes, in the mouth or in the hand may go back to this idea.
In 1977–1978 very rich graves were discovered near Vergina , the larger of which was tentatively attributed to Philip II , the father of Alexander the Great , by the excavator . The grave contained, among other things, a gold-decorated iron body armor, a helmet, a sword, gold-plated greaves, a gold quiver mount, a gold-plated silver diadem and a gold case with the corpse ashes.
Rome and the Roman Provinces
The burials in Rome and the Roman provinces are equipped with grave goods very differently depending on the time and region. From the city of Rome itself, only relatively few graves with rich graves are known. In the catacombs there is often only a piece of jewelry, a lamp, a small ointment bottle or a coin - if at all. Wealth in tombs of Rome was made visible in a different way, an elaborate sarcophagus and burial structure are important here . Britain is one of the provinces in which the frequency of gifts declined sharply in late antiquity . Hundreds of burials without gifts can be found in a late antique cemetery at Colchester . In the provinces of Germania superior and Inferior and the neighboring Belgica , clear regional differences can be identified. Traditional “Germanic” additive customs (for example in a burial ground near Tönisvorst with ceramics or scissors in local tradition) persisted in rural burial places on the Lower Rhine until the imperial era. In Cologne and the surrounding area of Cologne, regional additional customs such as giving away mostly three small one-handled jugs are emerging. In the generally "free gifts" Roman Rhineland and in the areas bordering it to the west, it was customary to bring crockery for food and drink until late antiquity. In comparison, z. B. in the provinces on the Danube back the addition of dishes in late antiquity.
Early middle ages
In the early European Middle Ages , important parts of the deceased were given to the grave with them. For women, this includes clothing, of which mostly only metal components such as dress pins (fibulae) , buckles, shoe buckles or calf bands have been preserved. Also jewelry, such as earrings , pearl necklaces or rings ; also boxes or spindle whorls . The equipment of the men often include weapons like spathe , Sax , ax , shield or arrow and bow ; belt buckles are often preserved from clothing . The accessories that women and men have in common include utensils for personal hygiene such as combs , bronze wash bowls and ceramic and glass vessels for food and drink.
In the Alemannic burial grounds of Oberflacht and Lauchheim , wooden objects have also been preserved thanks to favorable traditional conditions, including coffins, candlesticks, vessels (bowls, bottles, buckets), a lyre , chests and beds.
Middle Ages and Modern Times
In the course of Christianization , grave goods became uncommon; Signs of dignity and (miniaturized) objects for holding a mass were found in clergy's graves. Grave goods from bishops' graves are usually rings, bishop's staffs, chalices and godparents . The entire Islamic world assigns grave goods to the pagan world and rejects them.
Non-European cultures (examples)
Egypt
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The pre-dynastic Neolithic cultures of Egypt already knew a distinct tradition of gifts. The abundance of gifts from the pharaohs can be seen in the grave of Tut-anch-Amun , who died young and was politically relatively insignificant, which was discovered in 1920 and is kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo ; all other known pharaohs tombs had been robbed long before modern times.
Scythians
The Scythians are famous for their rich grave goods , in whose Kurgan numerous gold objects - probably made by Greek goldsmiths - were found.
China
Some regions of China have a long tradition of burial with grave goods (see mingqi ); in others such things are unknown. Reports indicate the rich design of the as yet unopened tomb of Qin Shihuangdi , the first Chinese emperor near Xi'an . The grave of Lady Xin Zhui near Changsha , discovered in 1971, was also richly decorated with grave goods.
Mesoamerica
In the princely graves of the cultures of Mesoamerica ( Aztecs , Maya etc.) numerous grave goods were found, among which the death masks made of jade and turquoise flakes particularly stand out. The Zapotec grave no. 7 from the temple town of Monte Albán near Oaxaca with rich gold jewelry should be emphasized . The graves in the necropolis on the island of Jaina off the west coast of Yucatán are richly decorated with clay figurines.
South America
Famous are the graves and burial objects of the pre-Inca Lambayeque and Moche cultures discovered in the late 1970s in the northwest of today's Peru , primarily of the so-called "Lord of Sipán" (Señor de Sipán) and the "Lady of Cao" (Señora de Cao) .
Caribbean
In the Caribbean region, so-called Zemi are used as grave goods.
Grave robbery
Ancient and Middle Ages
Although in almost all cultures graves were considered sacrosanct and were neither damaged nor robbed, many were robbed in ancient times; In this context, the pharaohs graves in the early pyramids or the complex shaft graves in the Valley of the Kings should be mentioned, which - according to one assumption - were robbed by former construction workers and / or their family members.
Also in early medieval laws, grave robbery was enforced by laws, e.g. B. prohibited in the Lex Salica . The medieval grave robbery should not necessarily be limited to purely material aspects, because in the early Middle Ages graves were searched so specifically that the relatives (who knew the exact location of the burial) were likely to be the "perpetrators". These relatives may also have brought gifts from the earth for other reasons, e.g. B. to make an object that is important for the community usable again or to recover ancestral possessions in the event of a move away.
Modern
The scientific value of objects from robbery excavations is often nil, as relevant information on the circumstances of the find cannot be inferred. Unauthorized excavations and the export of archaeological finds are forbidden in many countries (including holiday destinations such as Turkey and Egypt), and sometimes draconian penalties are imminent.
literature
- Hans Bonnet: Additions. In: Hans Bonnet: Lexicon of the Egyptian religious history. 3rd unchanged edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , pp. 90-93.
- Karlheinz Fuchs (Red.): The Alemanni. Theiss, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-8062-1302-X (exhibition catalog).
- Susanne Lamm: Grave custom grave robbery. In: Christian Bachhiesl, Markus Handy (ed.): Crime, criminology and antiquity. Ancient culture and history 17, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-50639-9 , pp. 163–186 (conference proceedings).
- Dieter Planck (Red.): The Celtic Prince of Hochdorf. Methods and results of state archeology. Theiss, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8062-0441-1 (exhibition catalog).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max Martin: Comments on the equipment of the women's graves and on the interpretation of the double graves and subsequent burials in the early Middle Ages . In: Werner Affeldt (Hrsg.): Women in late antiquity and early middle ages. Living conditions - living standards - ways of life. Contribution to an international conference at the Department of History of the Free University of Berlin in 1987 . 1990, p. 89 ( uni-heidelberg.de [PDF]).
- ↑ Christoph Kümmel: Right of the Dead, Ritual Consumption or Object Collection? For the conception of grave goods and their meaning for the interpretation of grave disturbances . In: Christoph Kümmel, Beat Schweizer, Ulrich Veit (Hrsg.): Body staging - collection of objects - monumentalization: death ritual and grave cult in early societies . Waxmann Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8309-2004-5 , pp. 476 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
