Horse burial by Wulfsen

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The triple burial in situ (1974, photomontage)
Presentation in the permanent exhibition 2008

The horse burial of Wulfsen is an early medieval burial of three horses that was found in 1974 on an Old Saxon burial ground in the municipality of Wulfsen in the Harburg district . The find is preserved as a paint preparation and is shown in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg .

Find

The site was on the northeastern edge of the edge of a sand pit near Wulfsen, where a fossil collector observed a soil discoloration in the summer of 1974, which he considered to be archaeologically interesting. He reported his observation to the Museum for the Principality of Lüneburg, which forwarded the report to the Helms Museum responsible for the region. During the following excavations on the grave field disturbed by the sand mining, a total of 35 body burials and one horse burial were documented. The human burials were relatively poorly preserved due to the sandy soil . 26 older burials, oriented in a south-north direction and nine younger burials oriented in a west-east direction, were excavated. The graves showed up on two arrowheads in the grave of a teenager no additions to.
Location: 53 ° 18 ′ 22.8 ″  N , 10 ° 9 ′ 30.3 ″  E Coordinates: 53 ° 18 ′ 22.8 ″  N , 10 ° 9 ′ 30.3 ″  E

Horse burial

A burial of three horses was found in a steep-walled pit measuring 230 × 240 cm. Only bones and teeth of the animals were completely present, but the bones were only friable and brittle. There was no evidence of additions such as bridles . All horses were lying on their left-hand side in a south-north direction, their heads rested on a raised part of the pit in an upright position. The middle horse lay with its abdomen in the prone position, its legs and those of the animal lying to the east were strongly bent. The legs of the horse lying to the west were in a half-stretched position, it occupied about half of the pit. For recovery, the bones were carefully uncovered from a work platform and soaked with cold glue, the pit was then covered with varnish and glue-soaked crepe paper . The bones were also secured with wire and needles. Then the pit was filled with hard foam and the burial was salvaged as a block in a wooden crate. The entire find is located on the roughly three to four millimeters thick, prepared layer of sand with the bones embedded in it.

The state of preservation of the bones made zoological investigations difficult . The horse lying to the west was most likely a mare , the rest of the stallions . With heights at the withers of 130 to 140 cm, the animals were relatively small by today's standards, but had normal body sizes for those times . The ages of the animals were between five and seven years.

Due to the findings, such as the geographical orientation of the body graves and their burial, the find is dated to the period around 700–800 AD .

interpretation

The excavation of the Wulfsen horse burial as a Lego model

The burials correspond to pagan traditions due to the burial management and their geographical orientation . The more recent burials take place shortly before this region was completely Christianized , as a result of which burial customs changed fundamentally. The horse burial could not be clearly assigned to any of the warrior graves. For this reason it is unclear whether this is an individual animal burial or an addition to one of the human burials. Burials of individual horses are not uncommon in the early Middle Ages, as shown, for example, by the Schnelsen rider's grave, but this triple burial of horses in northeastern Lower Saxony is so far unique. There are other triple burials, for example, from Mühlhausen and Griefstedt ( Thuringia ) and Beckum from North Rhine-Westphalia .

For the special exhibition LEGO Time Travel at the Archaeological Museum Hamburg, a model of the excavation work at the horse burial was made from Lego bricks at the beginning of 2013 .

literature

  • Ralf Busch : Triple burial from Wulfsen, district of Harburg . In: Ralf Busch (ed.): Place of sacrifice and sanctuary, cult of prehistoric times in Northern Germany . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2000, ISBN 3-529-02010-9 , pp. 216-217 .
  • Claus Ahrens: A new late Saxon burial ground with triple horse burial near Wulfsen, Harburg district . In: Hammaburg NF . No. 2 , 1975, ISSN  0173-0886 , pp. 119-124 .
  • Hans Reichstein: Comments on the horse burial of Wulfsen from a zoological and pet-related point of view . In: Hammaburg NF . No. 2 , 1975, ISSN  0173-0886 , pp. 125-126 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Subject area death, showcase no.116.
  2. ^ 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 Archaeological Museum Hamburg Helms-Museum . No. 101 ). Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-931429-20-1 , pp. 158 .
  3. ^ A b c Claus Ahrens: A new late Saxon burial ground with triple horse burial near Wulfsen, Harburg district . In: Hammaburg NF . No. 2 , 1975, ISSN  0173-0886 , pp. 119-124 .
  4. ^ Claus Ahrens: A new late Saxon burial ground with triple horse burial near Wulfsen, Harburg district . In: Hammaburg NF . No. 2 , 1975, ISSN  0173-0886 , pp. 119 . / Gauss-Krüger coordinates: 3577295; 5908895
  5. ↑ Hans Reichstein: Comments on the horse burial of Wulfsen from a zoological and pet-related point of view . In: Hammaburg NF . No. 2 , 1975, ISSN  0173-0886 , pp. 125-126 .
  6. ↑ Ralf Busch: Triple burial from Wulfsen, district of Harburg . In: Ralf Busch (ed.): Place of sacrifice and sanctuary, cult of prehistoric times in Northern Germany . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2000, ISBN 3-529-02010-9 , pp. 216-217 .