Stone box from Oberzeuzheim
The stone box of Oberzeuzheim is a late Neolithic gallery grave of the Wartberg culture (3500–2800 BC) and was located in Oberzeuzheim, a district of Hadamar in the Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse . The place of discovery is in Oberzeuzheimer corridor 48 "Beim grau Stein" (in 1439: bii dene graen steynen ). At the beginning of the 17th century the field name was: Groß Stein, Grauwe Stein and Groen Stein for a Schiedtmahl (boundary stone).
While trying to remove disturbing stones from the field, the farmer B. Horn came across deep-lying stones and bones in 1985. This resulted in an indication of another stone box in the Limburg basin . A first anthropological investigation revealed that it was human bones. A probe found that there were other large stones in the ground. In the following year 1986 an excavation could be carried out.
On the roughly 250 square meter excavation area, 20 non-local basalt stones between one meter and 2.5 meters in length (most around 1.8 meters) were uncovered under layers of humus and loess . The nearest basalt deposits are 1.3 to 2.4 kilometers away. The stones weighing up to five tons were transported to the location of the chamber. All of them were no longer in situ and had been sunk into perforated pits at various times.
One stone showed two probably picked bowls , which belong to the milieu of megalithic systems, but were probably only introduced in the Bronze Age .
In the otherwise stone-free loess soil there was rubble from the original hill that arched over the chamber. Apart from a few animal bones, delicate human bones (including a skull) from about 50 buried people and a single pearl from an amber necklace were found.
Even if it was destroyed and no longer familiar in its original form, a third stone box was rediscovered in the Limburg Basin , on the right of the Lahn , from which the corridor probably gave its name more than 500 years ago.
Settlements belonging to the three gallery graves have not yet been found. It is worth mentioning the location of the stone boxes at a height of around 200 m, on the border between the fertile and less fertile loess soils of the basin. This location is a feature of many stone chambers in Hesse.
In agreement with the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse, 19 basalt slabs were given to the landscape museum to move the grave into the Hachenburger Burggarten. The Westerwaldkreis as the museum sponsor had given its consent to the construction of the stone box. The nine-meter-long stone box from Oberzeuzheim, modeled on the stones, gives a picture of Neolithic architecture at the Westerwald Landscape Museum .
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Coordinates: 50 ° 28 ′ 14.6 " N , 8 ° 3 ′ 30.9" E