Gützkow stone grave
The large stone grave Gützkow was a megalithic grave complex of the Neolithic funnel cup culture near Gützkow in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald ( Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ). It was destroyed in 1818, but details about the complex have been handed down through a report by Johann Gottfried Quistorp and through drawings by Caspar David Friedrich , for whom the grave served as a template for various paintings, including a barrow in the snow and probably also in the autumn .
Despite this evidence, the exact appearance of the tomb remains unclear, as Quistorp's account remains vague and Friedrich's drawings are quite different from one another. The exact location of the grave is not known, nor is the orientation known. According to Quistorp, it had an upper capstone 12 feet long , 7 feet wide, and 5 feet thick. This rested on four wall stones. The burial chamber was already open. On some drawings, however, at least two more wall stones and a smaller, slipped cap stone can be seen, which Quistorp does not mention. The painting Hünengrab im Schnee emerged from these studies , while other pencil drawings without a second capstone served as a template for the sepia drawing Hünengrab in a meadow and the painting Hünengrab im Herbst .
Due to this problem, Ernst Sprockhoff considered all of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings and sepia drawings to be free compositions that are unsuitable for a reconstruction of the original appearance of the large stone graves on which they are based. Ewald Schuldt and Hans-Jürgen Beier followed this assessment and only classified the grave as a complex of an indefinite type. An address as a large dolmen appears to be quite likely, as this is the only documented grave type in the area of Gützkow.
- Drawings with two capstones and painting "Hünengrab im Schnee"
- Drawing with a capstone and painting "Hünengrab im Herbst"
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings as well as the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest. Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe 1. Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, p. 2.
- Karl Schildener : News about the past and present art - especially painting collections in New Western Pomerania and Rügen. In: Greifswald academic journal. Volume 2, Issue 2, 1828, pp. 40-41 ( online ).
- Ewald Schuldt : The Mecklenburg megalithic graves. Research on their architecture and function. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1972, p. 116.
- Ernst Sprockhoff : Atlas of the megalithic tombs of Germany. Part 2: Mecklenburg - Brandenburg - Pomerania. Rudolf-Habelt Verlag, Bonn 1967, p. 105.
