Grave mound of Rössen
| Grave mound of Rössen | |||
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 The Rössen burial mound |
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| Coordinates | 51 ° 19 '50 .9 " N , 12 ° 1' 12.9" E | ||
| place | Leuna , Saxony-Anhalt , Germany | ||
| Emergence | Neolithic | ||
The grave mound of Rössen is a multiphase unused, originally from a menhir crowned pre- and early historic grave mounds in Rössen , a district of Leuna in Saalekreis , Saxony-Anhalt . Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1918 and 1925 under the direction of the archaeologist Nils Niklasson (1890–1966), which were published promptly. The mound contained several burials that date back to the Neolithic . The oldest burial can not be precisely dated due to the lack of informative grave goods ; the remaining Neolithic burials can be assigned to the Cord Ceramic Culture (2800–2200 BC) and the Bell Beaker Culture (2600–2200 BC). Other burials date from the late Bronze Age (1300–800 BC) and probably the Middle Ages (500–1500 AD). Individual finds point to other burials, including from the Roman Empire (1–375 AD). The finds from the hill are now in the depot of the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt in Halle (Saale) .
location
The hill is located in the southeast of Rössen in the middle of a green area between the street Am Hügel, the Brückenstraße and the railway line Merseburg-Leipzig-Leutzsch . A little to the south, directly on the railway line, there is a wall , on the edges of which further Neolithic graves were discovered in 1915 in advance of the construction of the railway line. Further south, in the area of today's villa settlement Neu Rössen , the Rössen burial ground was uncovered in the 1880s, 1990s and 1918 and became the eponymous site for the Rössen culture .
Research history
The then director of the Provincial Museum in Halle, Hans von Borries, wanted to carry out an investigation of the hill as early as the 1890s, but was prevented by the municipality after he had already started to make an incision on the west side. Nils Niklasson received notification of this from the former pastor Georg Schmidt from Leuna; von Borries himself had left no entry in the museum files about the planned investigation. No information is available about possible findings from this first investigation.
On the occasion of the opening of the provincial museum in Halle, an excavation was carried out on the hill in 1918, which was led by the museum employee Nils Niklasson. The mound has not been fully excavated. Niklasson only made a 5.5 m wide cut, which started from the west side of the cut started by Borries and led almost to the middle of the hill. Because of a tree standing on the hill, the cut bent to the southeast just before the middle. In 1925 Niklasson carried out a subsequent excavation. From the north and south he drove a further cut at right angles to the first cut, each 3-4 m wide to the middle of the hill. However, both produced significantly fewer finds than the western section.
description
The hill
The hill has a slightly oval shape with a longitudinal axis running from east to west. Its length is 25 m, its width 17 m and its height 2.2 m above the ground or 2.9 m above the natural layer of gravel . The edge of the hill is not sharply set off or marked by a stone wreath, but gradually merges into the surrounding soil. The top of the hill has a slight depression.
Until 1918, the hill was of a chestnut tree crowned, was cut down to a monument to the fallen of the First World War to build. Originally there was a menhir on the hill, which Niklasson found lying next to the hill and which was later destroyed.
The existing soil consists of gravel. Above that follows a layer of humus 30–50 cm thick. The mound consists of dark, loamy humus. Niklasson could not detect any stratification. There were hardly any stones. Charcoal was also only found to a small extent and is likely to have arisen through natural processes. No evidence of fire layers was found.
The menhir
The menhir had a square cross-section and a height of 1.5 m. There is no information about width and thickness, not even about the material. According to Waldtraut Schrickel, it resembled the Tröbsdorf menhir .
The oldest Neolithic burial
Right near the center of the hill, Niklasson encountered a clay barn about three feet below the level of the surrounding ground . Below was an east-west oriented, very poorly preserved human skeleton. The only item found was a flint knife. A precise chronological and cultural classification of the burial was not possible due to the lack of meaningful finds. Niklasson suspected that this early grave was already marked by a small mound and that the larger mound was later deliberately built at this point.
The cord ceramic stone box
An incompletely preserved stone box was located above the oldest burial, roughly at ground level . It was oriented east-west and had a length of 1.4 m and a width of 0.7 m. The floor consisted of four sandstone slabs , the joints of which were filled with clay . At the southeast corner there were two wall panels at right angles to each other, and two more were at the western end of the north side. The remaining wall panels and the cover panels were missing. There were also no remains of the skeleton. The only grave goods found were two small, undecorated amphorae , which allowed the burial to be assigned to the ceramic cord culture. Niklasson suspected that the stone box had been destroyed in prehistoric times.
The burial of the bell-cup culture
The remains of a stool burial were found southwest of the stone box . The skull, parts of a thigh and a lower leg and some smaller bones were still preserved from the skeleton. The only surviving grave object was an undecorated beaker that could be assigned to the bell beaker culture.
Late Bronze Age burials
There were two stone packs above the stone box and above the stool grave. Both were oriented north-northeast-south-southwest. The western stone packing had a length of 2.6 m, a width of 1.1 m and a depth between 0.8 m and 0.9 m. The pack consisted mainly of smaller sandstones. Corpse burns and some unburned bones were found on burial remains. Grave goods were some undecorated shards of vessels and probably a knocking stone. A stone 50 cm in diameter was found under the stone packing, but it probably did not belong to this grave.
The eastern stone packing had a length of 1.2 m, a width of 0.5 m and a depth of 0.8 m. It was significantly smaller than the western pack, but made more carefully. The floor was paved with small to medium-sized sandstone slabs. Corpse burns and some unburned bones were found from the burial. There were also some unburned bones outside the stone packing. Perhaps the unburned bones in both stone packs originally came from the stool grave of the bell-cup culture, which was cut and partially destroyed when the stone pack graves were built. Ceramic shards are the only safe grave goods from the eastern stone packing. Two small bronze objects probably also come from here, but they were only found after the stone packing had been removed. It was a small spiral and a thin sheet of bronze.
Medieval burials
Near the middle of the hill, east of the eastern stone packing, a child burial was found just below the top of the hill. The skeleton was very badly preserved. He found wood scraps, as well as a boar tooth and a river mussel, but it is not certain whether they were grave goods. During the subsequent excavation in 1925, Niklasson was able to find another skeleton in the southern section about 3 m from the middle of the hill. It was stretched out in a west-east direction and had no additions. According to Niklasson, both skeletons can probably be dated to the Middle Ages. Several similar graves were later discovered next to the hill.
Single finds
Human skeletal remains, corpse burns, pieces of burnt clay and ceramic shards were found in several places on the mound. A bronze eye fibula is a special find that dates to the first half of the 1st century AD.
The hill in regional sagas
According to a legend , a king's son is said to be buried in a golden coffin in the hill. A very similar legend has been handed down about 50 km to the west of Derfflinger Hügel near Kalbsrieth in Thuringia : There it is a king in a silver coffin.
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings and the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Volume 1). Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, p. 67.
- Ulrich Fischer : The Stone Age graves in the Saale region. Studies on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age grave and burial forms in Saxony-Saxony-Anhalt (= prehistoric research. Volume 15). De Gruyter, Berlin 1956.
- Nils Niklasson : Recent excavations in Rössen. In: Mannus , Volume 11/12, 1920/21, pp. 309-337.
- Nils Niklasson: The Rössener Hügel. In: Annual publication for the prehistory of the Saxon-Thuringian countries. Volume 11, Issue 1, 1925, pp. 1-12 ( online ).
- Waldtraut Schrickel : Western European elements in the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age of Central Germany. Part I. Catalog (= publications of the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden. Volume 5). VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1957, p. 14.
Web links
- The Megalithic Portal: Rössener Hügel
- Saalekreis in the picture: First World War (Rössener Hügel)