Moon idol
The Mondidol (also Mondhorn) has between 1300 and 800 BC. BC ( Late Bronze Age ), especially during the Urnfield Age it was used as a fire ram.
Most of the moon horns found as single specimens are usually made of clay. While most of them are ambiguous due to their shape, the moon idol from Ebersberg and a firebuck from Lörzweiler (Mainz-Bingen district) show shapes that come very close to a bull's horn. In the Iron Age , from Denmark to Romania, there are more and more incised goats that show a stylized animal head at the corners. Images that could represent moon idols have also been found on Iron Age coins.
A rarer Mondidolfund was made in the disturbed grave of the 11th century BC in Reinach in the canton of Basel-Landschaft . Fragments of more than six moon horns were found on the Kestenberg near Möriken in the canton of Aargau . A moon idol was found in a settlement pit near Buxheim (Krs. Ingolstadt). While most of the specimens have a flat, wide installation surface, the piece from Bötzingen (at the Kaiserstuhl) has three round feet. Apart from the decoration, it is interesting that there are specimens with one (Ebersberg), two (tables), three (Bötzingen), four (Calendarberg) and five feet (mostly from the Hallstatt culture) and those that have no (Switzerland) foot-like approaches demonstrate.
The Swiss M. Kerner considers the moon horn to be an astro-geodetic instrument. A specimen from Mainz-Hechtsheim with nine spikes and five horizontal holes seems to support such assumptions. One of the specimens found on the Kestenberg also has five such holes.
Firebuck
Iron Age finds of this kind - albeit with a different shape - have entered the literature as a firebuck . A particularly beautifully decorated example is the clay fireborn from Groß Siemz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It did not show any traces (exposure to heat, soot).
Fire bar
In 2003, in Sättelstädt in the Wartburg district, the end pieces of a carved cuboid of 8 × 8 cm (with an assumed length of 120 cm), which is also interpreted as a fire goat, were found in a house from the 1st century.
Other objects
The so-called moon horn, which is depicted as a relief under an abri in the Dordogne department of France and shows the Venus von Laussel in her right hand, is a representation of a completely different kind (cornucopia).
literature
- Mircea Babeș, V. Mihăilescu-Bîrliba: Germanic Latène period "firebucks" from the Moldau. 1971
- Kurt Derungs: Mysterious Zurich. ISBN 3-905581-22-1 .
- Simon Matzerath: Firebock and Mondidol in the late Urnfield Period - On the cultural-historical significance of a symbol bearer and its earliest evidence in the accessory custom . In: Karl Schmotz (ed.), Lectures of the 29th Lower Bavarian Archaeological Day (Deggendorf 2011) pp. 95–138.
- H. Steuer: Germanic "firebucks" from the Hanoverian Wendland. Arch. Correspondence sheet. 3, 1973
- K.-P. Wechler: Firebock in the house. In: Archeology in Germany 4/2004 p. 61
- Moon horns - prehistoric measuring devices. in Helvetica Archäologica 32/2001