Josef Maurer (archaeologist)

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Josef Maurer (born May 30, 1868 in Wimpasing near Wasserburg am Inn , † June 8, 1936 ) was a German archaeologist .

Life

Josef Maurer was born as the eldest son of the farmers Josef and Karolina Maurer in Wimpasing, today the municipality of Eiselfing . Around 1890 he moved his residence to Bad Reichenhall and in the same year married the businessman's daughter Monika Kaltmüller. He was the first museum curator of the Städtisches Heimatmuseum in Bad Reichenhall and headed it between 1900 and 1908. In 1908 Maurer was appointed to the Bavarian Conservatory of Art and Antiquities in Munich, which was renamed the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments during his tenure . In 1914 Maurer's first wife Monika died, in 1917 he seriously injured his left eye during excavations, and in 1918 he married Therese Schatz. Both marriages resulted in a total of five children. Maurer retired in 1933 and died on June 8, 1936. Josef Maurer is buried together with his two wives in Munich's Ostfriedhof in Obergiesing .

Excavations

Fish farm in Bad Reichenhall, area of ​​the former Roman settlement

Josef Maurer tried his hand at archeology as a child and was able to pass on some of the finds to the Museum Wasserburg . The first major excavation was conducted by Maurer in Langackertal in the municipality of Karlstein , which today belongs to Bad Reichenhall . At the so-called mushroom meadow in the northern part of today's fish farming route, he investigated a Roman burial cemetery from 1891. After Max von Chlingensperg bought the area on Berg, Maurer continued his excavations in the southern part of the Fischzuchstrasse. There, between 1892 and 1899, he examined a Roman settlement from the middle imperial era , which was located on the area of ​​a settlement from the Urnfield period . In Langackertal, the adobe half-timbered houses of the Urnfield period were followed by the quarry stone buildings common in the imperial period, which existed until the middle of the 3rd century. Maurer examined a total of ten buildings, he also found a cremation site for the deceased and a bathing area.

One of the most important works by Maurer was the excavations on today's Schmalschlägerstrasse in Karlstein, on the northern slopes of the heights on which the Karlstein castle ruins and the St. Pankraz Church are located. The prehistoric settlement areas of Karlstein , which he examined , provided important information on the duration of the settlement of the Bad Reichenhall valley basin. The oldest finds come from the time of the bell beaker culture - remains of dwellings and pottery shards - and thus document a settlement history of the city that was more than four thousand years old. Maurer also examined nine Bronze Age dwellings as well as five dwellings and a cemetery from the Urnfield period . The archaeologically most valuable finds come from the La Tène period . The extensive coin finds in Karlstein am Haiderburgstein as well as the evidence of coinage were the basis for naming a silver coin as a small silver Karlsteiner type . These coins can be detected in the entire Eastern Alps as far as Slovenia . Paul Reinecke's Spätlatène D chronology system is based exclusively on Maurer's extensive finds in Karlstein.

Maurer's last excavations in the area around Bad Reichenhall took place in Hammerau near Ainring until 1908 , where Maurer examined 70 graves from the Merovingian period .

After moving to the Bavarian Conservatory of Art Monuments and Antiquities , he led countless excavations throughout Bavaria, including at Villa rustica in the Denning district of Munich .

Awards

On January 7, 1917, Maurer received the silver medal of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Eva Maria Krause: Josef Maurer at nordostkultur-muenchen.de (Association for District Culture in the Munich Northeast eV), accessed on April 25, 2019.
  2. ↑ Lieselotte Mertig: The Langackertal near Bad Reichenhall in prehistoric and early historical times . Self-published by Karlstein b. Bad Reichenhall 1968.
  3. ↑ a b Lieselotte Mertig: Prehistoric settlement areas in the Karlstein area near Bad Reichenhall . Self-published by Karlstein b. Bad Reichenhall 1966.
  4. ↑ Johannes Lang : History of Bad Reichenhall. Ph. CW Schmidt, Neustadt / Aisch 2009, ISBN 978-3-87707-759-7 , p. 50.
  5. ↑ Object of the month April 2018: Goldblattkreuz on stadt-bad-reichenhall.de (pdf), accessed on April 25, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Mason, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Wimpasing (Eiselfing)
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1936