Jaromarsburg
The Jaromarsburg was from the 9th to the 12th century the God Svetovid dedicated to worship of the Slavic tribe of Ranen . Located on the northeastern tip near Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen , it was protected on two sides by the steep coast and on the land side by a castle wall. The name of the temple castle is derived from the Ranen prince Jaromar I , who became a vassal of the Danish king Waldemar I after the subjugation of Rügen by Denmark in 1168 .
From Cape Arkona parts of the high cliff have repeatedly plunged into the sea in the last few centuries , which is why it is mainly the ramparts of the Jaromarsburg that are visible today. With 10 to 20 m of land demolished per century, it is assumed that the current area within the wall is only a third of the original. Therefore, archaeological emergency excavations have been taking place for several years, through which the location of the Svantovite temple was found, which was long believed to have been lost due to bank breaks. It is a rectangular area that was completely free of finds, but around which all the more could be found, which point to offerings, including destroyed weapon parts. This also coincides with the historiography by Saxo Grammaticus , which says that the priest was not even allowed to breathe inside the temple in order not to pollute it.
construction
The castle complex consisted of two ramparts , one behind the other , which reached a height of 13 m. They were also attached. The fortifications and the temple were made of wood. Originally the extension of the fortifications was 300 m in north-south direction and 350 m in east-west direction. According to the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, the temple was surrounded by two enclosures, the outside of which had a purple roof. Inside was a four-meter-high Svantovite statue carved from an oak trunk. Saxo Grammaticus writes: In the right hand the figure was holding a drinking horn made of various metals. The priest filled it with mead every year and prophesied of the coming harvest from what has disappeared in the course of the year.
It is believed that the settlements belonging to the temple were at the point where the fishing villages of Vitt and Putgarten are located today , whose name means At the foot of the castle .
history
The Ranen had settled on Rügen since around the 9th century. They probably built the sanctuary at this time and built the castle complex in several stages. In the 11th century, the wall was raised by backfilling with soil from the inside of the castle. The Ranen dominated Rügen for a while and after the destruction of Rethras in 1068 the temple complex took over its importance as the religious center of the Slavs in the southern Baltic region. The temple served as an oracle complex and received offerings not only from Slavs.
As early as 1136, a Danish army under King Erik II Emune had conquered the temple fortress. The subjugated Ranen promised to take over Christianity, but did not adhere to the agreement after the Danes had left. In 1157 a storm destroyed a large Slavic fleet off the coast of Norway . The Danish King Waldemar I used this weakness in the course of Christianization to launch an offensive against Rügen, which was the stronghold of the Ranen. After changing attacks, raids and partial victories, he landed on May 19, 1168, accompanied by his military leader and close confidante Bishop Absalon , with his fleet at Arkona. In 1168 or 1169 the temple castle was taken after a four-week siege, after a fire had been set in an unguarded location the day before, which the defenders of the castle could not put out due to water shortages. Research disputes the date, since Saxo writes without a year, Helmhold von Bosau definitely gives the year 1168. The papal document, which recognizes the conquest of Rügen and placed the new parishes under the diocese of Roskilde, has the date November 4th without a year but with the location Benevento. Since the Pope, Alexander III, stayed in Benevento in 1168 as well as in 1169, an unequivocal dating is not possible. The temple was then destroyed, and the Svantovite statue was cut up and burned.
After the fall of the temple, the princes of the Rügen Slavs Tezlaw - who until then was considered the king of the Rans - and his brother Jaromar submitted to the Danish king in their headquarters in Charenza . After Tezlaw's death in 1170, Jaromar was prince of the Ranen until 1218. With the temple complex, King Waldemar I fell into the hands of a treasure, which he had to share with his ally Heinrich the Lion in 1171 . The extensive land ownership of the temple went to the Christian priesthood.
In 1169, Rügen was placed under the sovereignty of the Bishop of Lund , who enforced the Christianization of the population. Numerous chapels were built on former cult and burial sites. The first Christian church in Rügen was built in the area of the former Svantovite sanctuary. In the nearby church of Altenkirchen , the construction of which was probably started as early as 1185, the priest stone or Svantevit stone was installed lying on its side directly above the foundation plinth. There are different interpretations of this stone. It is very likely that the stone relief was created before the Christianization of Rügen and could represent the priest of the Slav god Svantevit , because only he had the right to touch the large decorated drinking horn of Svantevit; But it could also be the gravestone of Prince Tezlaw, who was awarded the Wittow peninsula after the Danish conquest of Rügen . Furthermore, it is assumed that the side position of the stone should represent the superiority of Christianity over the earlier religion.
Archaeological research
The Jaromarsburg on Arkona is the only rampart in Germany that has been described in detail at the time. That is why the castle has been archaeologically examined several times because, among other things, the erosion has continuously reduced the castle area. An information board in the special archaeological exhibition in Schwerin in 1995 showed this demolition very clearly. The castle area has shrunk to 1/3 of the original area in 1000 years.
This moved archaeologists of all time to examine the area of the castle before it completely disappeared into the sea. Carl Schuchhardt , a Berlin archaeologist, undertook the first investigation known in writing in 1921. In addition to a detailed description of the ramparts that existed at that time, he made various investigations and made several search cuts in the interior. The most important was a radial section from the wall towards the center of the castle at the top of the demolition. At the top he saw signs of development. He interpreted the results of the extensive excavation there as a temple with the location of the Svantevit statue. This is doubted by later archaeologists, but over time this point has also broken into the sea, so that Schuchardt's results can no longer be verified.
Excavation 1921 Jaromarsburg
Assumed temple location in 1921
Demolitions at the Jaromarsburg in 1000 years
Viking weapons found in front of Jaromarsburg in 1933
Jaromarsburg - view from the bearing tower
An important finding was that Saxo's written reports were correct and that the space around the temple was empty as a place of worship. Hardly any finds could be recovered. Then to the west of the temple was the smaller, but now leveled wall, behind which the living area stretched to the large wall. Whether it was only intended for the cult priests and their servants or as a refuge for surrounding settlements and as a location for craftsmen has not yet been determined.
In 1930 Wilhelm Petzsch carried out a targeted investigation on the wall and the documented gate. The most important result was that he established that under the battle and fire layer from 1168 (Danish king Waldemar I) and the battle layer from 1136 (conquest by Danish king Erich II) there was a deeper layer of fire, which he dated to 1000. During this period, however, no significant fighting was documented. This was confirmed by a plowed-up weapon find 25 meters in front of the wall from 1933, which was documented by Petzsch. It consisted of a broken sword and a lance iron. The still recognizable chasing on the crossguard of the sword was dated to the Viking Age.
It was not until 1964 that it was included in the GDR's list of monuments, when it was recorded, measured and documented. A comprehensive archaeological investigation was carried out around 1970. As a rule, the old excavation results were confirmed and many individual finds were made. In 1981 there was a major demolition at the northern end of the wall, over 23 meters of the wall and the surrounding area sank into the sea. In 1994 a cistern that had previously been recognized but not excavated was excavated at the edge because it was feared that this section would also break off.
From 2003 to 2005 another major excavation was carried out by the state office in order to forestall the progressive erosion. A larger area in the south at the so-called Adlerhorst was meticulously examined. That was the assumed area of the castle settlement. Many finds, including spectacular ones, are documented but not yet published. The excavation area from 2003 to 2005 can be seen as a bright spot in the aerial photo above.
Due to the demolitions, visitors were not allowed to enter, but the bearing tower allows a good overview of the site.
literature
- Carl Schuchhardt : Arkona, Rethra, Vineta. Site surveys and excavations. 2., verb. and possibly edition Schoetz, Berlin 1926.
- Wilhelm Petzsch , Günther Martiny: Wall and gate of the temple fortress Arkona. In: Prehistoric Journal . Vol. 21, No. 3/4, 1930, pp. 237-264, here p. 237 ff. And p. 262, doi : 10.1515 / prhz.1930.21.3-4.176 .
- Wilhelm Petzsch, Karl A. Wilde: A Viking weapon find from Arkona. Excavations on the castle hill of Gützkow (= information from the collection of prehistoric antiquities of the University of Greifswald. 7, ZDB -ID 223453-1 ). Bamberg, Greifswald 1935.
- Astrid Tummuscheit: "The hearth of all errors" - the temple castle Arkona on the northern tip of Rügen. In: Uta Maria Meier, Hildegard Countess von Schmettow, Jens-Peter Schmidt (Red.): Archaeological discoveries in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Cultural landscape between Recknitz and Oderhaff (= archeology in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Vol. 5). State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation, Schwerin 2009, ISBN 978-3-935770-24-8 , pp. 157–158.
- Peter Ziemann: Ranen, Rügen and Meer. The story of a sunken Slavic tribe. Edition Pommern, Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2015, ISBN 978-3-939680-25-3 .
Individual evidence
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↑ a b Torsten Kempke: Scandinavian-Slavic contacts on the southern Baltic coast in the 7th to 9th centuries. In: Ole Harck, Christian Lübke (ed.): Between Reric and Bornhöved. The relations between the Danes and their Slavic neighbors from the 9th to the 13th century (= research on the history and culture of Eastern Central Europe. Vol. 11). Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07671-9 , pp. 9-22, here p. 14.
Recently, Heike Reimann, Fred Ruchhöft, Cornelia Willich: Rügen in the Middle Ages on the dating of the Slavic conquest of Rügen . An interdisciplinary study on medieval settlement on Rügen (= research on the history and culture of Eastern Central Europe. Vol. 36). Steiner, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-515-09441-2 , p. 42 ff. - ↑ Riis, Thomas: Studies on the history of the Baltic Sea region IV. The medieval Danish Baltic Empire, Odense 2003, p. 28.
Web links
- Literature about Jaromarsburg in the state bibliography MV
- The Guard Vogteien Wittow and Jasmund website with information about Cape Arkona including the Jaromarsburg
- Reconstruction drawing in the medieval state
- “Die Feste Arcun”, contribution to the Jaromarsburg
Coordinates: 54 ° 40 ′ 35.8 ″ N , 13 ° 26 ′ 13 ″ E