Burial mounds of upper solvers
The grave mound of Oberlöstern are two tombs from the Roman period near the Waderner hamlet Oberlöstern in Saarland .
Finding
In the vicinity of Oberlöstern, in the woods "Standermich" and "Rehkopf", there are early Celtic burial mound groups from the 5th and 4th centuries BC. When, in the 1960s, two more sloped hills were discovered in the "Dachsheck" area, which is located south of the connecting road between Oberlöstern and Gehweiler, this find was also initially attributed to the Celtic period.
In 1991 sandstone debris with processing marks came to light, which made this theory invalid, since no processed stones were to be expected in Celtic burial mounds. The State Conservatory Office had excavations carried out between 1991 and 1995. It was found that the two tumuli were surrounded by sandstone walls, the cuboids of which had dimensions of up to 1.55 × 0.60 × 0.50 meters, on which half-cylindrical cover stones lay. These borders had sides of 16 and 18.50 meters. Square burial chambers with three meter long side walls had been created within the tumuli, which the excavators only found in a robbed condition. The burial chambers were originally accessible from the valley side. Each of the two tumuli was crowned with a stone pine cone.
A monument must once have stood between the two burial mounds. They were probably three figures of gods the size of full-grown people who stood on a kind of altar and were protected by a shed roof. The corners of the roof had heads in Phrygian caps . In front of this monument was a rectangular cinder pit that, according to dendrochronological studies, was dug in 123 AD. The remains of burnt ceramic vessels were found in this pit.
The two burial mounds, which presumably also date from the 2nd century AD, were apparently laid out on an already existing Roman cemetery with urn graves and cinder pits, to which a settlement about 400 meters further northeast belonged. This was in today's corridor "honey sack". It can be assumed that important people were buried in the two elaborate graves, which, contrary to the custom of the time, were not laid out as flat graves. The names of these dead are not known.
Reconstruction and presentation
The two tumuli, but not the monument in between, were reconstructed as part of a job creation scheme in 2000 and 2001. Signs and an information board point out the importance of the tomb, which is freely accessible in hilly terrain.
Information sign in the area
Information board with reconstruction drawing
View over one of the graves to the place
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 34 ′ 46.7 " N , 6 ° 54 ′ 50.2" E