Innsbruck hospital cemetery
The Innsbruck hospital cemetery , built in the 14th century, belonged to the city hospital located at the northern end of Maria-Theresien-Straße / Marktgraben. From 1510 to 1856 it also served as a municipal cemetery.
history
As early as 1320, the Heilig-Geist-Spital (today's area at the northern end of Maria-Theresien-Straße / Marktgraben), which was built in the Neustadt between 1300 and 1307, was granted burial rights for Innsbruck citizens, although the municipal cemetery around St. Jakob was not opened until 1509 because of the expansion the Hofburg was lifted.
The enlarged burial ground behind the hospital church was consecrated in 1510 with the Michael chapel donated by the pharmacist Rumler on the west side of the hospital cemetery. In the years that followed, arcades with columns made of Nagelfluh / Breccie were built along the surrounding wall , the chapel was extended, and the upper floor was consecrated to St. Anna. The double chapel is traditionally known as the St. Vitus Chapel.
An extension was made in 1576 to the west and in 1742/43 to today's Fallmerayerstraße. In 1784, Emperor Joseph II demanded that cemeteries be laid out outside the city for hygienic reasons and banned burials on part of the area. The cemetery was therefore again expanded to the west and south in the area of today's Adolf-Pichler-Platz . In 1854, shortly before the cemetery was closed, it was enlarged again to the west as far as Colingasse.
As early as 1852 there were the first plans to relocate the cemetery, which were finally approved by the Lieutenancy in 1855. In 1856 the new cemetery, today's Westfriedhof , was built in the Wilten fields. On December 31, 1856, it was decided to abandon the old cemetery, but it took several years until the site was completely cleared. In 1869 the St. Vitus Chapel and the tombs were razed and individual graves were transferred to the new cemetery. The furnishings of the chapel (altar, pews, statues) were brought to the parish church of St. Nicholas .
In 1873 the city had the "Saturn Monument", a marble memorial from the grave of the Counts of Selva-Trostburg , restored and transferred to the Westfriedhof. It commemorates all the deceased whose bones were transferred from the old to the new cemetery.
A new hospital wing (today the west wing of the grammar school) was built in the place of the chapel, the houses on the north and west side of Adolf-Pichler-Platz were only built around 1878. In 1889 the hospital was relocated to the new building in the west of the city, the old hospital buildings became a secondary school in 1890 - today the Bundesrealgymnasium Innsbruck .
The large amount of construction work for houses and gymnasium, the erection of the base for the Adolf Pichler monument and the 470 m² underground extinguishing water tank as well as the bomb crater during the Second World War and the construction of the streets and sewerage system severely damaged the former cemetery and its burial grounds.
In 2000, as part of the City Hall renovation including underground and hotel construction were still parts of the rest of burial and funeral remains are archaeological evaluated and transferred salvaged.
Archaeological research
The archaeological excavation at the former hospital and city cemetery, which was under great time pressure for political and economic reasons, recorded 444 graves and several ossuaries. Due to lack of time, some of the skeletons could only be recovered but not documented, some had to be plucked directly from the excavator shovel, around 300 to 400 skeletons from the burial ground and ossuaries were irretrievably destroyed and removed with construction machinery and could therefore not be scientifically processed any further. The skeletons are now buried in a collective grave at Innsbruck's Westfriedhof, the finds are still awaiting scientific processing.
The graves were close together, many grave shafts were occupied several times and testify to the intensive use of the cemetery. The main occupancy of the archaeologically recorded part of the cemetery took place after 1785. The oldest part of the cemetery directly at the hospital church had already been abandoned under Emperor Joseph II and was completely destroyed when the grammar school was built, so that no finds from the early days of cemetery occupancy could be scientifically recorded .
The graves followed the Christian burial tradition, stretched body position facing east. Most of the skeletons were in excellent condition; only a few showed signs of decay due to poor soil conditions. Iron nails, handles and fittings in the shape of a cross are evidence of burial in coffins. Loose overlying bones may have come from previous burials that were shoveled out and back again.
Shards of Fritzens-Sanzeno ceramics and fibula fragments from the Latène period came to light under the graves , so that this place bears witness to an early settlement before the turn of the century, as indicated by the discovery of a Negau helmet in the adjacent Fallmerayer-Straße in 1877 .
Grave goods
Around 75 rosaries, 70 pilgrims' medals, 60 crosses, reliquary containers, coins, remains of clothing, pieces of coffin wood, jewelry and personal items were found and are stored in the Innsbruck city archive and, due to a lack of funds, have not been submitted to any scientific processing until today.
Anthropological investigation
The anthropological field documentation of the first 200 skeletons was carried out by the Institute for Anatomy of the University of Innsbruck and is still unpublished to this day; George McGlynn and Alexander Zanesco could only examine another 189 skeletons in a field documentation because the financial framework was limited. The city of Innsbruck had the skeletons buried at Innsbruck's Westfriedhof.
Most of the skeletons examined probably date from the first half of the 19th century and show signs of heavy physical stress, such as changes in the vertebrae and degenerative joint diseases of the limb bones, infectious diseases, injuries and diseases of the teeth caused by cariogenic foods and poor oral hygiene. The expectation of finding victims of the armed conflicts of the early 19th century was not fulfilled. The anthropological investigation was able to show, however, that many skeletons had cut marks from scalpels and testified to amputations and trepanations . These traces probably did not come from therapeutic measures, but from the practice of surgical techniques by medical students and surgeons, as well as from autopsies .
See also
literature
- Alexander Zanesco: Cemeteries in old Innsbruck. The excavations at Adolf-Pichlerplatz . In: Time - Space - Innsbruck. Series of publications from the Innsbruck City Archives . 1, Innsbruck 2001, pp. 7-30
- George McGlynn and Alexander Zanesco: The skeletal series from the hospital cemetery at Adolf-Pichler Platz, Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria . In: Documenta Archaeobiologiae, Skeletal Series and their socio-economic context . Rahden / Westfalen 2007, pp. 57–66
- Konrad Fischnaler: Innsbrucker Chronik II, art and music chronicle . Innsbruck 1930
- Franz-Heinz Hye : Innsbruck history and cityscape, Tiroler Heimatblätter special volume 800 years city of Innsbruck, 55th year No. 2/1980
- Adolf-Pichler-Platz and its eventful history. In: Innsbruck informs, August 2000, special supplement City Hall Project Innsbruck, pp. 10–11 ( digitized version )
Web links
- Old municipal cemetery (Spitalsfriedhof) on tirolensien.at
Coordinates: 47 ° 15 ′ 56.9 " N , 11 ° 23 ′ 32.3" E