Stone box from Meckelstedt
Coordinates: 53 ° 36 ′ 16 ″ N , 8 ° 55 ′ 36 ″ E
The stone box of Meckelstedt is a Bronze Age stone box near the village of Meckelstedt in the district of Cuxhaven in the Elbe-Weser triangle in Lower Saxony .
In 1896 one of the hills north of the village of Meckelstedt was opened and a stone box made of slabs and boulders was found under a stone packing . The stone box from period II of the Bronze Age consists of seven bearing stones and five cover plates. Part of the stone packing and the mound have been preserved. Their content consisted of:
- a 67 cm long full- handled sword of the Danube type with an octagonal handle,
- a 11.3 cm long dagger with a rounded headstock,
- a 17 cm long decorated paragraph beil from Nordic type,
- a 6.5 cm high, straight-walled vessel with a circumferential rib perforated twice vertically.
- a human skull
- two stake rivets and humpback tape,
The contents of the stone box from Meckelstedt are among the most important Bronze Age grave finds. Several interested parties began to fight for possession of the finds, which the Hannover Provincial Museum won with the highest bid (of 200 marks).
To the north of the village lies the remainder of a row of barrows which, according to H. Müller-Brauel counted in 1893, consisted of over 30 burial mounds . They lined an old military path that leads from the Hohen Lieth in the west, passes the stone box near Meckelstedt and leads into the Lange Moor . The fact that the Heerweg found its continuation in the moor is concluded from various plank paths found in the peat. Some have been examined and some of them could be dated to the older Bronze Age.
See also
literature
- Herbert Aust: The Bronze Age stone box from Meckelstedt. In: Guide to Prehistoric and Protohistoric Monuments. Volume 31: The Elb-Weser Triangle. Part 3: Excursions: Bremerhaven, Cuxhaven, Worpswede. von Zabern, Mainz 1976, pp. 132-134.
