Long mountain (Baalberge)

The Lange Berg was a burial mound presumably from the Bronze Age in Baalberge , a district of Bernburg in the Salzlandkreis , Saxony-Anhalt . It was destroyed in the middle of the 19th century. By interviewing a resident, however, some details about the structure of the hill and the recovered finds have survived.

location

The Lange Berg was east of Baalberge near the post mill .

In and around Baalberge there were originally several other burial mounds, all of which except for the Schneiderberg were destroyed in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The Schinderberg , which was destroyed in 1793, was located at today's cemetery . The Evangelienberg was located between Baalberge and Bernburg . In 1794 a burial mound near Rönitz was removed. Another grave mound destroyed was the Tochauer Berg near Kleinwirschleben .

In the wider area there are still some preserved burial mounds, such as the Stockhof burial mound near Gröna to the west and the Pfingstberg , the Pohlsberg and the peak Hoch bei Latdorf and the Fuchsberg near Weddegast to the north . Also to the north are the three large stone graves Heringsberg near Grimschleben , Bierberg near Gerbitz and Steinerne Hütte near Latdorf.

History of destruction and research

The existence of several burial mounds near Baalberge was first recorded by Johann Christoph Bekmann in his History of the Principality of Anhalt published in 1710 and in the Baalberg church chronicle of 1742.

In the middle of the 19th century, the hill was given to a farmer who was supposed to use the soil on the hill to straighten the depressions in a neighboring field. Between 1853 and 1854, the mound was completely removed, revealing several stone boxes. The objects contained therein were partially saved by the farmer. Paul Höfer , who took part in an excavation on the Schneiderberg in 1901, was able to learn some details about the Long Mountain from the farmer's son, which he published the following year.

A lecture by a grammar school director Fischer, published in 1896, may also refer to the Long Mountain. This quotes statements about a burial mound opened in 1825 near Baalberge. Höfer suspected that it was a misprint and that it was actually meant in 1852.

description

According to Adolf Reinicke, the son of the farmer responsible for the demolition, the hill contained about five to seven stone boxes. They consisted of stone slabs and were mostly painted red on the inside. If the statements from the lecture of the grammar school director Fischer refer to the Langen Berg, it would have to be specified that the boxes were painted white on top, black in the middle and only red on the bottom.

Finds

Several urns with corpse fire and some grave goods were found in the stone boxes . These were smaller ceramic vessels, a stone ax, a bronze knife and several hollow bronze arm rings. The knife and ax were still owned by the family in 1901 and could be described in more detail by Paul Höfer. The other finds had been lost in the meantime. After 1945 the ax could no longer be found either.

The knife has a total length of 25.3 cm. The blade ends in a hilt with a tang. The actual handle has not been preserved. The blade is decorated on both sides with concentric circles, lines and rows of small arcs, the handle with concentric semicircles and transverse lines. The tang has been roughened to give it a better grip.

According to Höfer, the ax was made of a gray-wacke-like stone. It has a length of 21.3 cm, a thickness of 3.4 cm and a height of 2 cm.

Dating

The only reliable clue for the dating of the burial mound is the bronze knife. According to Höfer, it belongs to the younger Bronze Age , more precisely to the period V defined by Oscar Montelius . It can no longer be determined whether the burial mound was possibly used in multiple phases and, similar to the neighboring Schneiderberg, contained older, Neolithic burials.

literature

• Johann Christoph Bekmann : History of the Principality of Anhalt. Zerbst 1710, p. 140 ( online ).
• Wilhelm Albert von Brunn : Knowledge and care of the ground monuments in Anhalt. In: Annual publication for Central German prehistory. Volume 41/42, 1958, pp. 28-71.
• Karsten Falke, Andreas Neubert: Baalberge. 8th spring excursion by the Archeology Working Group in the Bernburger Land and the Anhalt Regional Studies Association on April 26, 2014 ( online ).
• Paul Höfer : Baalberge. In: Annual publication for the prehistory of the Saxon-Thuringian countries. Volume 1, 1902, pp. 16-49 ( online ).

Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 49 "  N , 11 ° 48 ′ 9.9"  E