Napoleon hat (millstone)
Napoleon hat is the name of millstones that were made in Central Europe during the La Tène period ( 5th - 1st century BC ) from Eifel basalt lava and, due to their pyramid shape , a bicorn , the military one common at the beginning of the 19th century Officer's headgear, same. As early as the 1930s and 2014, Napoleon's hats were found in the Rhyölith deposit in Dossenheim in the Rhine-Neckar district .
The millstone was used as a so-called “lower part” for the production of cereal flour by rubbing or grinding cereal grains. The stone was embedded in the ground with its pointed side. The basalt required to manufacture the millstones was mined in the quarries of the Eifel in open-cast mining, roughly cut into the required shape and shipped as trading goods via the Rhine and Maas transport routes to distant regions .
Dimensions
The dimensions refer to the millstone shown
- Grinding surface: oval 50 cm × 25 cm
- Height: 30 cm
- Weight: 29 kg
literature
H.-E. Joachim: To Iron Age rubstones made of basalt lava, the so-called Napoleon hats. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 15, 1985, pp. 359-369.
swell
- Object appraisal office of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn