Schwarza burial mound
The grave mound of Schwarza in Schmalkalden-Meiningen in Henneberger country in Thuringia originate from the tumuli time , the middle of the second millennium BC. Chr.
Many burial mounds in Thuringia have been visited by lay researchers and robbery graves since the 19th century. Scientific excavations took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s under the direction of Rudolf Feustel , who also examined three of the 15 burial mounds in the woods southeast of the small town of Schwarza and reconstructed one of them. In 1996 further excavations were carried out south of Schwarza as part of the construction of the A71
The largest hill in Schwarza (hill no. 1) had a diameter of about 13 m and was still about 1.4 m high. Its importance lies in the uniqueness of its horizontal stratigraphy , in the abundance of recovered bronze objects and in the number of people buried. The almost stone-free embankment was enclosed inside and on the edge by a dry stone wall, which lifts the hills of the region around Schwarza out of the contemporary existence. Almost undisturbed, 16 extremely rich burials that remained unique in number and proportion of women were found in hill No. 1. Including six women's, six men's and two children's graves and the grave of a woman with a child. They were irregularly distributed, not oriented in one direction, which is a completely unusual shape. The clothed dead rested in the hill on their backs stretched out with their jewelry and weapons. Most were buried on a death board or in a coffin made of oak. The coffin was sometimes on a stone or sand base, but mostly on the natural ground. Often the head and foot of the burial were delimited by stones.
literature
- Rudolf Feustel & Helga Jacob: Bronze Age barrow culture in the area of Schwarza (South Thuringia) Weimar 1958
Web links
- Bronze Age in South Thuringia (PDF; 15.6 MB)
Coordinates: 50 ° 36 ′ 56 ″ N , 10 ° 33 ′ 44 ″ E