Secondary burial
Besides burials designate larger the custom of grave sites to other people beside the grave owners bury . This custom was mostly used by high-ranking personalities, kings , rulers , pharaohs or high officials ( Egypt ). Family members and servants who are to continue to serve the grave owner in the afterlife were buried (depending on the cult of the dead , belief ); animals have also been found in various side graves.
Since the corresponding persons who were buried at the secondary burials were still alive at the time of the death of the main person, they were either killed before the burial or, depending on the grave site, also buried alive . Some people also speak of human sacrifice .
Side burials were common in many ancient cultures . They were best known from excavations in Egypt. Side burials were carried out here during the 1st and 2nd dynasties . But also on other continents and in other cultures the custom was common for some epochs .
Examples of secondary burials
Side burials by Egyptians
The practice of secondary burials in ancient Egypt was limited to a period of about 250 years of the 1st and 2nd dynasties . The first secondary burials to be found belong to the grave complex of King Aha (around 3000 BC). The custom ended at the latest with the burial of King Peribsen (around 2760 BC), whose tomb no longer had any additional graves. In the grave of Djer in Umm el-Qaab , the largest number was found with 318 side burials.
Side burials by Celts in Germany
In Waiblingen -Hegnach ( Baden-Wuerttemberg near: Ludwigsburg ) were Hartwald three tumuli found. Four burials were found in the first burial mound, they were discovered by Hartwig Zürn in the late Hallstatt period 800–650 BC. Dated. In the second barrow, 21 burials were counted. There is a main burial chamber and the secondary burials are arranged around it. It is believed that there are still several graves and a small settlement to which the cemetery belongs, but these have not yet been found.
Side burials by Mongols in Mongolia
In the Mongolian Orkhon Valley near Bat-Ölziy there are several stone graves (burial mounds made of basalt) to one of the stone graves belongs a side grave with a secondary burial. The age of the tombs is not known.
Side burials by Mochica in Peru
The Moche lived on the northern Peruvian coast from around 100–860 AD. In 1987 a grave of a Moche ruler was discovered in Sipán , about 800 km north of Lima . His priest and a military commander , among other things, were buried in the side graves belonging to the grave so that they could still serve him after death. Another grave with probably a previous ruler that was found here only contains a secondary burial, it is about a young woman. However, an animal grave with a llama was found here.
Side burials by Scythians in Russia
In Tuwa , Siberia east of the Urals , the archaeologist Hermann Parzinger ( DAI ) and his Russian colleague Konstantin Tschugunow (from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg ) dug an undisturbed Scythian grave for the first time. The grave dates from around 500 BC. Several hundred Scythian barrows lie in this necropolis . The princely grave includes over 20 side burials. A horse grave was also discovered in which fourteen skeletons were found.
Side burials by Vikings
Several burials of Vikings have been found on the Isle of Man . The most elaborate are the ship graves of Balladoole , Ballateare and Cronk Moar. There are female side burials in the graves of Ballodoole and Ballateare. In these secondary burials, the skull injuries are very noticeable, which indicates a killing immediately before the burial. The graves date from around 800 AD. Side burials of people were very rare among the Vikings, but side burials of animals were more common.
literature
- Gerhard Bersu / David M. Wilson: Three Viking Graves in the Isle of Man. The Society for Medieval Archeology. Monograph Series 1, London (1966)
- Hans Bonnet: Menschenopfer , in: Lexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte , Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , pp. 452–455.
- James Graham-Campbell: The Vikings , Munich (1994)
- Wolfgang Helck / Eberhard Otto : Kleines Lexikon der Ägyptologie , Wiesbaden (1999), ISBN 3-447-04027-0
- BA Ильинская / AN Тереножкин: Скифия 7-4 вв до нэ, Киев (1983)
- Karl Jettmar : The early steppe peoples , Baden-Baden (1964)
- A. Kubsysev: The Bratolyubovka Kurgan. The grave of a Scythian nomarch? In Hamburg Contributions to Archeology 18, Mainz (1996)
- Hermann Parzinger : The Scythians . Beck, Munich 2004. ISBN 3-406-50842-1 (new, excellent overview)
- Hermann Parzinger, Wilfried Menghin and Manfred Nawroth (eds.): In the sign of the golden griffin. Royal tombs of the Scythians . Prestel Verlag, Munich 2007
- David M. Wilson, Man . In: Johannes Hoops (Ed.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 19, Berlin / New York (2001)
- David M. Wilson, Vikings. § 2 British Isles . In: Johannes Hoops (ed.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 34, Berlin / New York (2007), pp. 59–64
- Hartwig Zürn : Hallstatt period grave finds from Württemberg and Hohenzollern , research u. Ber. Before u. Mornings Bad-Württ. Volume 25, Stuttgart (1988)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helck, W./Otto, E .: Kleines Lexikon der Ägyptologie, p. 186 (Menschenopfer), Wiesbaden (1999)
- ^ Hartwig Zürn: Hallstatt research in northern Württemberg. The grave mounds of Asperg (Kr. Ludwigsburg), Hirschlanden (Kr. Leonberg) and Mühlacker (Kr. Vaihingen) , Stuttgart, 1970
- ↑ www.megalithic.co.uk
- ↑ Information about the exhibition: Gold from ancient Peru. The royal tombs of Sipán. www.peru.travel/de
- ↑ www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/archäologie-sibiriens-pharaonen
- ^ Hermann Parzinger, Wilfried Menghin and Manfred Nawroth (eds.): In the sign of the golden griffin. Royal tombs of the Scythians . Prestel Verlag, Munich 2007
- ^ Gerhard Bersu / David M. Wilson: Three Viking Graves in the Isle of Man. The Society for Medieval Archeology. Monograph Series 1, London (1966)