Great stone grave in Wersabe

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The megalithic grave Wersabe was a megalithic grave complex of Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture in Wersabe , in the municipality of Hagen in Bremen in Cuxhaven ( Lower Saxony ). It was destroyed in the 19th century.

location

The grave was in the moor near Wersabe in the direction of Hagen at the southern end of the Anschars or Schars dam, a 500 m long sandy elevation.

description

The grave was completely sunk into the moor so that only the three capstones were visible. An exact description of the facility by Pastor Fromme from Wersabe was only given after it was destroyed on the basis of statements from the workers. Accordingly, it was oriented east-west and was about 10 paces (approx. 7.8 m) long, 5 paces (approx. 3.9 m) wide and probably 4 feet (approx. 1.2 m) deep. A total of eleven wall stones were discovered under the capstones: three or four on the two long sides and two on the narrow sides. According to this description, it should be a large dolmenhave acted. The floor was paved with a solid, cement-like mass, and the cavities between the wall stones were also filled with this mass. It was probably a mixture of finely crushed flint and clay .

Some remains of bones, probably five ceramic vessels and some flint axes were found in the burial chamber . Most of the axes were taken away by the workers, their whereabouts are unclear. Fromme was able to acquire one and bequeathed it to the museum in Stade , today's Schwedenspeicher Museum , together with the lower part of a decorated ceramic vessel, the fragments of two other vessels and two pieces of iron that had apparently also been found in or around the grave.

The grave in regional sagas

According to Fromme, the residents thought the capstones of the complex were graves of Swedish officers who had died in the Thirty Years' War .

literature

  • Krause: The antiquity of the last few years in the duchies of Bremen and Verden. In: Archive of the Association for History and Antiquities of the Duchies of Bremen and Verden. Volume 2, 1864 (1865), pp. 280-282 ( online ).
  • Otto Olshausen : The alleged finds of iron in stone age graves. In: Journal of Ethnology. Volume 25, 1893, pp. 104-105 ( online )
  • Ernst Sprockhoff : Atlas of the megalithic tombs of Germany. Part 3: Lower Saxony - Westphalia. Rudolf-Habelt Verlag, Bonn 1975, ISBN 3-7749-1326-9 , p. 11.