Warrior burial Hamburg-Marmstorf grave 216

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Model of the funeral in cross-section

The warrior burial Hamburg-Marmstorf grave 216 is the burial of a wealthy Germanic warrior from the Roman Empire , which was found in 1954 in the urn grave field of Hamburg-Marmstorf . The grave inventory and a model of the grave are shown in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in Hamburg-Harburg .

Find

The urn grave field was on the southern slope of the small hill Krönenbarg in Hamburg 's Marmstorf district, which had been used for agriculture since the middle of the 18th century. In 1910 the landowner gave the first finds to the school of Maschen, which he picked up on the plowed field. As a result, other reading finds from the Stone and Bronze Ages were recovered and scientifically examined. In 1931 several Iron Age graves were cut when a settlement was being built on the southern slope . The finds that emerged during the construction and in the following years were salvaged by interested laypeople and given to the Helms Museum, followed by several excavations between 1932 and 1942, which finally had to be stopped due to the war. Due to the planned expansion of the row house settlement in 1954, a rescue excavation was carried out on the area of ​​the burial ground . A total of 362 graves were uncovered, of which 280 burials, which mainly belonged to the Jastorf culture levels A and B from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, as well as 103 more recent burials from the late La Tène period and the early Roman Empire from the 1st century BC. In addition, 24 older pits were documented, some of which were overlaid by younger burials, but otherwise showed no connection with the burial ground. Some of the burials were disrupted by previous agriculture, construction work and a bomb crater from World War II. In addition, parts of the cemetery had already been lost undocumented during construction work. Overall, the younger graves were more disturbed by the agricultural use of the site than the older ones, which were protected by a larger layer of soil. The warrior burial from grave 216 was recovered from a depth of about 50 cm in the excavation campaign in 1954.
Location: 53 ° 25 ′ 56.6 ″  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 40.9 ″  E Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 56.6 ″  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 40.9 ″  E

Findings

Parts of the grave equipment in the display case:
No. 1 Pole
shield hump
No. 2 Shield shackle No. 3 Roller cap fibula
No. 4 two spearheads

A wide-mouthed ceramic pot made of dark brown clay served as the burial urn . This stood at a depth of about 55 cm below the surface of the terrain. The pot has a short edge that rises diagonally from the shoulders, the wall of the lower part curves slightly inwards and has a narrow, worn base. The shoulders are decorated with circumferential, step-shaped patterns of double lines. Hanging triangles are arranged around the shoulders, the lower corners of which run out in vertical lines towards the base. Before firing, all decorations were indented into the dried-on vessel body with a profiled wheel. Inside the vessel, 75 g of the corpse burn could be recovered together with a bronze roller cap fibula . The small amount and consistency of the corpse burn did not allow any further anthropological statements about the deceased. The 42 mm long fibula has short roller caps and a low bow comb with irregularly punched grooves. The tendon hook has an animal head ornament. In addition, shards of at least four other ceramic vessels were found, which also had wheel decorations. All grave goods were ten cm below the burial urn. An iron pole shield boss was dug upside down. This has a diameter of 148 mm, a height of 120 mm with only a short rod. The edge of the shield boss is edged with a narrow bronze sheet and has nine rivets with thimble-shaped heads made of bronze, which are distributed around the edge in three groups of three. A small iron lance tip, 168 mm in length, with a diamond-shaped cross-section and a medium- wide leaf, lay firmly rusted on the shield boss . Next to the hump of the shield was a large lance tip, the remains of the shackle and a double-edged iron sword . The sword has a blade length of 630 mm with a blade width of 45 mm at the base of the right-angled tang . A small, lens-shaped rivet head forms the knob. The handle was bent by 180 ° and engaged in the shield boss. The point of the sword reached to a depth of 110 cm below the surface of the terrain. Next to the sword was the 305 mm long lance tip with a flat diamond-shaped cross-section and a medium-wide blade as well as two rivet holes in the socket. The shackle had profiled ends and, at 15 cm, was only fragmented. Other organic components such as wooden weapon parts or the board of the shield have not been preserved in the relatively sandy and well-ventilated soil .

Dating

The burial place was typologically dated to the time around 50 AD due to the characteristic weapons , the ceramic vessel and the roller cap fibula.Scientific dating using dendrochronology or radiocarbon dating has so far not been possible due to the poor preservation of organic materials in the grave.

interpretation

Urn burials are the typical form of burial for the Teutons of the Roman Empire. Usually, the deceased's personal equipment was also burned and placed in the urn with the remains . The warrior burial at Marmstorf grave 216 differs somewhat from this practice in that the grave goods were given unburned in the grave pit. However, at this burial, too, according to the usual burial custom, parts of the weapon equipment were intentionally made unusable by bending the handle of the sword in such a way that it could no longer be used as a weapon. Since the lance was stuck in the ground next to the shield boss, it is assumed that the old wooden lance shaft possibly protruded from the ground and thus marked the grave above ground. The sex determination as male was derived from the weapons in the accessory equipment.

literature

  • Friedrich Laux : Warrior grave 216 from the urn cemetery Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: Ralf Busch (Ed.): Find and Interpretation - Old and New Finds from the Archaeological Collections . Hamburg Museum for Archeology and the History of Harburgs Helms-Museum, Hamburg-Harburg 1995, p. 62-63 .
  • Willi Wegewitz : The urn cemetery of Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: The Adventure of Archeology . Isensee, Oldenburg 1994, ISBN 3-89442-230-0 , p. 237-253 .
  • Willi Wegewitz: The urn cemetery of Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: The urn cemeteries in Lower Saxony . tape 7 . Lax, Hildesheim 1964.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rüdiger Articus, Jochen Brandt, Elke Först, Yvonne Krause, Michael Merkel, Kathrin Mertens, Rainer-Maria Weiss: Archäologisches Museum Hamburg, Helms-Museum: A tour through the ages (=  publications of the Archäologisches Museum Hamburg Helms-Museum . no. 101 ). Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-931429-20-1 , pp. 67 .
  2. ↑ Topic Violence, Showcase No. 44 + 45.
  3. ^ Willi Wegewitz : The urn cemetery of Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: The urn cemeteries in Lower Saxony . tape 7 . Lax, Hildesheim 1964, p. 1-37 .
  4. ^ Willi Wegewitz : The urn cemetery of Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: The urn cemeteries in Lower Saxony . tape 7 . Lax, Hildesheim 1964, p. 2 .
  5. ^ Willi Wegewitz : The urn cemetery of Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: The urn cemeteries in Lower Saxony . tape 7 . Lax, Hildesheim 1964, p. 28, 58-59, plates 15, 43 .
  6. ^ Friedrich Laux : warrior grave 216 from the urn cemetery Hamburg-Marmstorf . In: Ralf Busch (Ed.): Find and Interpretation - Old and New Finds from the Archaeological Collections . Hamburg Museum for Archeology and the History of Harburgs Helms-Museum, Hamburg-Harburg 1995, p. 62-63 .

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