Herr von Morken
As Mr. Morken of which is grave lay a warrior of the Frankish upper classes from the 6th century called that in 1955 Morken in North Rhine-Westphalia was found.
location
The grave was located in a Franconian cemetery with at least 23 other burials from the Merovingian era . The burial site on the Kirchberg as a terrain spur above the Erft allows a wide view. On the site there was a Roman villa rustica , in the ruins of which the parish church of St. Martin was built in the 10th century. The grave field was located away from the burial site of the Merovingian population of Morken. This was discovered in 1983 while mining lignite around 450 meters southwest of the Kirchberg. There were 480 graves on the burial ground that were excavated and documented.
Because of the two burial grounds it was observed for the first time in the northern Rhineland that there were different burial places for the nobility and the village population.
description
The still untouched grave was discovered in 1955 during excavations of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn near Morken, which had to give way to the open- cast brown coal mine in the Rhenish brown coal district .
The deceased was buried in a coffin within a wooden chamber grave made of oak . The burial was furnished with rich grave goods , including personal clothing and weapons made of high quality materials such as silver, gold and precious stones. It also included things of everyday life, such as glasses, buckets as well as food and drink additions. The most valuable piece was a spangenhelm made of iron and gilded bronze sheet . It has a height of 18 cm and its largest diameter reaches 22.5 cm.
The weapons and the iconography of the decorative elements of a belt indicate far-reaching connections between the wearer and a prominent class in Europe. In its quality and wealth, the grave equipment in the northern Rhineland is regarded as significant. Based on the grave goods, the burial could be dated to around AD 600.
The grave finds were subjected to extensive investigations. The age of the warrior is estimated at 45 years plus or minus 15 years. He had a severe head injury, probably from a sword blow . Bone examinations showed that the wound had healed well and was not the cause of death. The examinations of cell samples showed that the deceased regularly consumed meat and thus differed significantly from the village population, who ate more of a vegetable diet. A facial reconstruction was carried out in 2014 based on the skull .
presentation
The grave finds are part of the permanent exhibition of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn. From September 21, 2018 to January 6, 2019, they were shown at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in the exhibition Moving Times. Archeology shown in Germany , which took place on the occasion of the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018.
literature
- Hermann Hinz : The excavations on the Kirchberg in Morken, Bergheim district (Erft). Rhine. Exp. 7 , Düsseldorf, 1969
- Elke Nieveler: New questions to old finds. The grave of Herr von Morken and the grave field Bedburg-Königshoven (FR 50) in: Matthias Wemhoff , Michael Rind (Hrsg.): Moving times - Archeology in Germany. , Petersberg, 2018, ISBN 978-3-7319-0723-7 (exhibition catalog), pp. 214–215
Web links
- Mr. von Morken at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn
- The Lord of Morken. Reconstruction of the grave of a Frankish nobleman
Individual evidence
- ↑ Facial reconstruction of Mr. von Morken in Bonn at archäologie-online from May 2, 2015
- ↑ 1400-year-old Rhinelander got his face back at Deutsche Welle on April 29, 2015
- ↑ Lars Heyltjes: Mr. von Morken got a face in the Bonner Rundschau on April 29, 2015