Schortewitz stone grave

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Schortewitz stone grave
Schortewitz stone grave, view from the northwest

Schortewitz stone grave, view from the northwest
Schortewitz stone grave (Saxony-Anhalt)
Red pog.svg
Coordinates 51 ° 39 '11.7 "  N , 12 ° 1' 34.6"  E
place Zörbig , Saxony-Anhalt , Germany
Emergence 3500 to 2800 BC Chr.

The large stone grave Schortewitz (also called "Heidenberg" or "Heidengrab") is a Neolithic grave in the town of Zörbig , village of Schortewitz in the Anhalt-Bitterfeld district in Saxony-Anhalt . It is located in the northern part of the village of Schortewitz. The hill on the northern edge of the Fuhne, which was formerly free in the area, was formerly a striking feature of the landscape on the Köthener Platte. Originally there was one near the megalithic tomb grave mounds and a passage grave ( ramp box ). The latter is now reconstructed in the courtyard of Köthen .

description

Schortewitz large stone grave, western part of the burial chamber

The hilly complex with eleven burials in the burial chamber and a further eleven tombs in the hill was discovered during archaeological excavations from May 20 to June 27, 1913 under the direction of Walter Götze (1879–1952). It is an approximately west-east oriented megalithic complex , which either belongs to the passage grave or large dolmen type , and as such is the southernmost complex of this type in Germany. At the time of the excavation, the northern grave wall consisted of five bearing stones, the southern one of four bearing stones, three of which were still in situ . In the west there was a capping stone also aligned in situ. Due to the missing fifth southern bearing stone and the excavator's observations, the original access is said to have been on the south side. The eastern area of ​​the megalithic grave was already disturbed at the time of the discovery. The more recent finds of the Bernburg and the spherical amphora culture (KAK) speak in favor of access from the narrow eastern side . Remnants of footprints of the access could not be observed. Of the TWO capstones, the western one was still preserved in situ, the second lay broken in the chamber and was returned to its original position on the bearing stones after the excavation was completed. The outer length of the northern bearing stones is 6.80 m, that of the southern, destroyed, 4.50 m. According to the excavator's diary notes, the interior height at the keystone was 1.75 m, the interior length 5.70 m and the interior width 1.40 m. During the excavations, the empty burial chamber with a neat paving made of sandstone and porphyry slabs was found. In the eastern interior, the chamber was divided by a transverse stone slab, so that a larger and a smaller area were available.

The burials in the burial chamber

Under the two to three layers of pavement, eleven body burials were discovered, all of which were individually interred in a crouching position facing the cardinal points. They were children of different ages and adults. The condition of the bones was so poor that not a single skeleton could be completely recovered. The observed remains of wood indicate that the burial was probably carried out in simple wooden boxes. The four pierced amber pendants, one pierced mica pendants, a chain made of over six hundred pierced fruits and stone cores and several flint blades are real additions that can be assigned to the burials . Ceramic additions were found broken on the walls of the burial chamber and can only partially be assigned to one of the burials. The restored vessels are small, beautiful jugs from the Salzmünder culture , double-conical pots with a folded rim, fingertip ornamentation and four knobs under the rim, as well as double-conical pots with straight necks and vertical eyelet handles, which are also typical vessel shapes of the Salzmünder culture. An exception is the burial in the east of the burial chamber, which was the only one to be buried in a crouched position on the left . In addition to an incompletely pierced amber pendant and dog teeth, the remainder of a cup from the Walternienburg-Bernburger culture was found. It is a two-part cup with a deep break, a handle and decoration in the form of horizontal grooves and vertical rows of stitches. In addition, in the eastern area of ​​the burial chamber there was also an ornate ceramic shard with furrow-stitch fringes and double arched stitching at the top and single arched stitching at the bottom. There were still remains of white incrustation in the decoration. Due to the decoration, this find is dated to the spherical amphora culture.

See also

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. 110–111.
  • Hans-Jürgen Beier: The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings as well as the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest . Beier and Beran, Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, p. 66 ( Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe 1, ZDB -ID 916540-x ), (At the same time: Halle, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1991: Die megalithischen, submegalithischen and pseudomegalithic buildings as well as the menhirs in the five new East German federal states (formerly GDR) ).
  • Walter Götze-Geuz : Prehistoric graves in the district of Cöthen. Coethen 1913.
  • Cornelis Hornig: The Heidengrab im Heidenberg. In. Harald Meller Ed. Beauty, Power and Death. 120 finds from 120 years of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. 2002, ISBN 3-910010-64-4 , pp. 102-103.
  • F. Lüth: The Schortewitzer Heidenberg and the time of the Anhalt megalithic graves. In: Acta praehistorica et archaeologica. Vol. 20, 1988, pp. 61-74.
  • Brigitte Schiefer: The Schortewitz Heidenberg and its position in the Central German Neolithic. Unpubl. Master's thesis, Halle (Saale) 2002.
  • Britta Schulze-Thulin : Large stone graves and menhirs. Saxony-Anhalt • Thuringia • Saxony . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2007, ISBN 978-3-89812-428-7 , p. 66.

Web links

Commons : Großsteingrab Schortewitz  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schulze-Thulin, p. 66
  2. ↑ Götze 1913
  3. ↑ Beier 1991, Part II, p. 66
  4. ↑ Hornig, p. 102