Warriors of Hirschlanden
The warrior of Hirschlanden is a statue of an unclothed ithyphallic warrior made of parlor sandstone . It is the oldest Iron Age life-size anthropomorphic statue north of the Alps found to date . Chronologically, the warrior can be classified in the Hallstatt period, probably in the 6th century BC. The statue can be seen in the Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart .
Find
The statue was found on November 5, 1963 in Hirschlanden , today a district of Ditzingen in Baden-Württemberg , during a rescue excavation as part of the land consolidation in the Gewann Holzheim about 2.2 km west-southwest of the locality. It was located on the northern edge of a smaller burial mound about 32 meters in diameter, surrounded by a stone circle and a dry stone wall made of local shell limestone . The grave mound was already severely disturbed by plowing on its western side. The greater part was under meadow and was better preserved. Within the hill there were 16 burials - men and women - from the beginning of the Hallstatt period (Hallstatt D1, around 600 BC) to the La Tène period around 450 BC. Although the statue was found to the side of the burial mound, it is believed that it originally stood on the mound. Weathering shows that the statue was exposed to the elements for a long time before it came underground.
Description and rating
The material of the statue is coarse-grained parlor sandstone, as it occurs in the Keuperbergland west of Stuttgart about 6 km south of the site. The height of the original statue remained 1.50 meters. The legs from about the middle of the lower legs and the feet are missing. An original size of 1.70 m has been reconstructed. The warrior wears a hat or helmet tapering towards the top - possibly made of birch bark, comparable to the find of the deceased in Hochdorf - a choker and a belt with a typical Hallstatt dagger. All of these symbols indicate a higher rank of the person depicted.
In contrast to the realistic and muscular legs, the upper body was only shown schematically. The face is even more sketchy. This led to discussions as to whether the man could wear a mask, as is known from the burials of Kleinklein (Styria) and Trebenište (Macedonia), as well as from the, albeit much older, shaft graves in Mycenae (around 1,500 BC). The interpretation as a mask is likely due to tight eye sockets, a flat nose and a slit in the mouth. All facial features look slightly shifted downwards.
A Greek influence ( kouroi ) was also discussed, especially since trade relations with the Greek colonies on the Mediterranean, such as Massilia (Marseille), have been proven. However, the similarities in style with statues from Capestrano , Upper Italy (650-550 BC) and Casale Marittimo (mid-7th century BC) seem to be greater.
Numerous other finds of such anthropomorphic statues come from Baden-Württemberg, for example from Rottenburg, Tübingen, Stammheim and Stockach, although they are even more stylized. In the subsequent La Tène period , such anthropomorphic statues became much more common (see the finds from Glauberg and the Raibacher Bild (Hesse), Holzgerlingen (Baden-Württemberg) and Mšecké Žehrovice (Bohemia)).
gallery
Original in the Württemberg State Museum, front side
Original in the Württemberg State Museum, back
literature
- Julius Beeser: The kouro-keltos from Hirschlanden . In: Find reports from Baden-Württemberg 8 (1983), pp. 21–46
- Sabine Rieckhoff , Jörg Biel u. a .: The Celts in Germany . Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1367-4
- Hartwig Zürn : Hallstatt research in Northern Württemberg. The grave mounds of Asperg (district of Ludwigsburg), Hirschlanden (district of Leonberg) and Mühlacker (district of Vaihingen) (= publications of the State Office for Monument Preservation Stuttgart, Series A: Pre- and Early History 16), Stuttgart 1970
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 49 ′ 58.5 ″ N , 9 ° 0 ′ 39.9 ″ E