Large stone graves near Stedten
The megalithic graves near Stedten were two Neolithic megalithic graves in Stedten , a district of the Seegebiet Mansfelder Land community in the Mansfeld-Südharz district , Saxony-Anhalt . Grave 1 was excavated in 1835 and grave 2 before 1858. Both facilities were destroyed in the further course of the 19th century.
location
Both plants were located on hills south of Stedten: grave 1 on the Silberhügel ( location ) and grave 2 on the guard hill ( location ).
description
Grave 1
Grave 1 was still well preserved at the time of the excavation. It had an east-west oriented burial chamber made of large stone slabs, sunk deep into the earth. Since no size information has been handed down, it is difficult to determine the exact type of grave. According to Hans-Jürgen Beier , it could have been a real large stone grave or a submegalithic stone box . There are contradicting information about burials in the chamber. While the original report from 1839 only mentions a ceramic vessel (“ urn ”) at the eastern end of the chamber, Götze, Höfer and Zschiesche state that this was on the chest of a skeleton. The vessel is a cup from the late Neolithic Walternienburg culture .
When the mound was completely removed in 1839, a stone box from the end-Neolithic cord ceramic culture was discovered in addition to the original burial . This contained an amphora , a beaker , a flint wedge, a flint knife and a hammer made of dark green rock. The surviving finds from the grave are now in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle (Saale) .
Grave 2
Grave 2 had a ground-level grave chamber built from sandstone slabs with a length of 5 m, a width of 1.25 m and a height of 1.5 m. The exact type of grave cannot be determined with certainty. Hans-Jürgen Beier assumes a large dolmen or a sunken chamber grave . Several ceramic vessels, three wooden bowls, two stone axes and a wooden frame were found among grave goods. Only one of the ceramic vessels has survived: this is a beaker decorated with cord. The other items have all been preserved except for a wooden bowl. The finds are now in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle (Saale).
All grave goods found come from the cord ceramic culture. Since such large burial chambers are rather unusual for this culture, Ulrich Fischer assumed that it was only a matter of a subsequent burial and that the grave was originally built by members of the Walternienburg or Bernburg culture . Waldtraut Schrickel , however, suspected a purely ceramic grave.
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Beier : The grave and burial customs of the Walternienburg and Bernburg culture. Scientific articles 1984/30 (L19) of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, ISSN 0440-1298 , pp. 128–129.
- 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. 65.
- Ulrich Fischer : The Stone Age graves in the Saale region. Studies on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age grave and burial forms in Saxony-Thuringia (= prehistoric research. Volume 15). De Gruyter, Berlin 1956, pp. 102, 274.
- Alfred Götze , Paul Höfer , Paul Zschiesche: The prehistoric and early historical antiquities of Thuringia. Kabitzsch, Würzburg 1909, p. 39 ( online ).
- H. Grössler: Closed prehistoric finds from the districts of Mansfeld (mountains and lake), Querfurt and Sangerhausen. In: Annual publication for the prehistory of the Saxon-Thuringian countries. Volume 1, 1902, pp. 218-224 ( online ).
- Christian Keferstein : Views on Celtic antiquities, the Celts in general and especially in Germany. Volume I, Halle 1846, p. 28 ( online ).
- Waldemar Matthias : Catalogs on Central German Corded Ceramics. Part IV. South Harz-Unstrut area (= publications by the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Volume 28). Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1974, pp. 256, 261–262.
- Nils Niklasson : Studies on the Walternienburg-Bernburger culture 1 (= annual publication for Central German prehistory. Volume 13). Halle (Saale) 1925, p. 79 ( online ).
- Waldtraut Schrickel : Catalog of the Central German graves with Western European elements of the gallery graves of Western Germany (= contributions to the prehistoric and early historical archeology of the Mediterranean cultural area. Volume 5). Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1966, p. 420.
- Without an author: About a pagan tomb near Stedten, not far from Schraplau. In: New communications from the field of historical-antiquarian research. Volume 2, 1836, p. 139.