Tintinnabulum (Bronze Age)

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Tintinnabulum from the Eichenborn depot find in Wallerfangen 1850 (source: sketch H. Maisant 1971)

The Tintinnabulum (Latin for "bell", "bell"), also translated as sound plate, bell or rather profane with rattle plate or rattle hanger, is one of the most mysterious objects of the Bronze Age . Although the designation goes in the direction of a sounding instrument, the actual use is still unknown.

In one of the first descriptions of the find by Viktor Simon (archaeologist from Metz) in 1851, the object was also described as crepitaculum (Latin for rattle, rattle). The distribution area of ​​the sites mainly extends over a belt of central to north-western Europe, with complete recovered instruments being very rare, a total of around 20 specimens are currently known. In many depot finds , only individual components or fragments of sound bars have been found. The concentration of such finds in the Saarland - Lorraine border area is remarkable .

Chronological order

Tintinnabula were documented in Western Europe from the Middle and Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age (approx. 1000 to 500 BC), the majority is dated to Hallstatt -B and is related to the urnfield culture .

material

The sheets of the Tintinnabula consist exclusively of bronze . Real tin bronze with tin proportions between 2% and 18% was predominantly used . However, the alloys are typically, partly consciously, partly unconsciously, with additional metals such as B. lead, zinc, arsenic, nickel etc. This was often also due to the use of undifferentiated raw metals, which already have a natural penetration.

Even within the instruments, the individual components (large disk, small disks, radial rod and eyelets) often have different alloy ratios. The bronze rods are usually a little higher alloyed than the discs, this could be due to manufacturing, wear-preventive, but also optical reasons, but it can also simply be related to the raw materials currently available.

The alloy of the Wallerfanger Eichenborn Tintinnabulum consists for example of bronze with tin contents of 7.96 to 11.26% and 0.43 to 0.87% lead

production

The basic structure of the Tintinnabula is astonishingly the same, they always consist of a large disc with a circular perforation from the center, a radial rod with an outer (usually larger) and an inner eyelet, on which the two smaller discs are suspended. The small discs are usually a kind of reduction / miniature of the large disc, so to speak.

There are basically several manufacturing techniques for the various sound bars. The main disks are often cast, partly forged, the applications partly cast, or cast on (an early form of brazing or fire welding , depending on the use of solder or flux ) or simply riveted (hidden bar rivets).

Apart from this, there are (with a few exceptions) two particular things in common:

1. The concentric grooves are applied in almost all complete instruments in the same, typical arrangement, three slightly decorated fields delimited by double lines, interrupted by two undecorated, but roughly equal ring fields. The proportions and the arrangement of the concentric lines are amazingly similar, if it were only decorations there would have been an infinite number of possibilities, so it stands to reason that the indentations had a different meaning!

2. Usually at the 6 o'clock position there is a hole, usually slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the small panes (French also fenêtre = window, a term that we will come back to later) of slightly varying size. These mysterious holes have not yet been conclusively interpreted either.

The size of the Tintinnabula is relatively different, the large disks have a diameter of approx. 180-300 mm, the small ones between 60 and 120 mm. The total weight varies accordingly between 500 and 1100 grams.

use

The exact function of these objects is unclear. The use as a pure sound instrument is obvious, but not verifiable, since in the practical test it could be clearly determined that the assembled object (with vertical suspension) cannot really sound, because the discs actually only hinder each other and absorb the sound. The sound is more of a tinny rattle.

It is noticeable that both the proportions of the components and the arrangement of the parts themselves are often in a ratio of 2: 1 and thus reflect the principle of the octave .

This also applies to the assumption that it could be horse or wagon jewelry, as many objects were found with parts of wagons and harnesses. Use as a cult device is also being considered, Günter Wegner addressed them as symbols of the sun.

Usable reproduction of the Eichenborn tintinnabulum (source: S. Michelbacher 2018)

Reproduction of the Eichenborn Tintinnabulum 2018

The Eichenborn Tintinnabulum , which was found in connection with the depot of the same name in Wallerfangen in 1850 , as one of the most imposing representatives of its kind, offered itself as a template for a reproduction.

The aim was to reproduce a tinted tabulum in the state it was buried about 3000 years ago, i.e. in the supposed state of use and not the state of the find. The reproduction made in 2018 is in the Historical Museum Wallerfangen . The original has been in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye since 1868 .

The Eichenborn depot find

The Tintinnabulum as part of the Bronze Age hoard was discovered in the autumn of 1850 by a farmer named Anton Boos on the property of Nikolaus Boos during the potato harvest in corridor 22 "Eichenborn". As early as 1851, the complex of finds was published and discussed by the Metz archaeologist and important collector Victor Simon (actually Charles-François-Victor Simon, 1797–1865). A description sounds quite poetic, "... on a hill between two swamps".

Detail dépot de vaudrevange = Catfish catch 1 in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale in Paris St. Germain en Laye

Find components

At that time, the find consisted of at least 63 parts, including a sword (so-called Mörigen type ) that the farmer unfortunately broke while plowing, 14 arm and leg rings of the Wallerfangen type, 3 rag axes, including one of the Homburg type , 1 spout ax, 1 Two -part bronze mold for axes of the Homburg type , 2 phalers, 2 snaffles and 4 eyelet gag type Wallerfangen , 2 spiral disks, various fittings and wire bronze as well as other, partly undefined artifacts, including 5 other small disks, e.g. Sometimes on a wire loop, which can be interpreted as a razor pendant or as a car accessory.

The Eichenborn depot find is assigned to the late Bronze Age / Younger Urnfield Culture (Hallstatt B3) and thus dates from around 850 BC. Chr.

At least four confirmed hoard finds and several individual finds from the Bronze Age have been discovered in Wallerfangen and the surrounding area. Due to the lack of burial features (e.g. urn, remains of bones, etc.), the Eichenborn find is probably a so-called consecration depot , which is also supported by the presence of a tintin tabule .

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that a matching mold was placed in the hoard to match the rag axes. A smelting of the bronze in the find area is conceivable because of the azurite mining in Wallerfangen. It is possible that in the Bronze Age the deposits of this local copper ore known as azurite , blue ore, mountain blue or copper glaze were still so abundant that it was worthwhile to use it for actual copper production, while in Roman times and later mining periods only the so-called Wallerfanger blue as a color pigment was used.

Celtic mining traces have not yet been proven, this may be due to the fact that rich deposits could still have been mined in open-cast mining (at so-called outcrops) and thus did not leave much infrastructure behind; on the other hand, early mining operations in later periods (Roman -> Emilianus -Stollen , medieval, period Saur , period Paul hopes have been) simply overprinted, as has happened repeatedly in many Wallerfanger Azuritbergwerken.

By evaluating the oxidations on the metal, it was possible to prove that the objects had been stored in or under water for a very long time and were then reburied. Why this happened remains another mystery!

Lost property

The originals did not remain in Catfish catches. The farmer Nikolaus Boos immediately handed the first finds over to the then Villeroy & Boch plant managers Alexandre-Bartholomé Sthème de Jubécourt (1818–1889) and Auguste Jaunez (1799–1879), the latter had an excavation carried out immediately afterwards, which both gentlemen were in charge of. They gave the finds to Victor Simon, a brother-in-law of Jaunez. After his death and the associated dissolution of the collection in 1868, the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye legally bought the entire deposit, where it is still kept. Later, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, as the institution responsible for the area, considered making repayment claims against Paris, but even at the time of occupied France from 1940-45, there was no real chance of invalidating the legally binding purchase contract and the pieces To bring "home". As early as 1903, very detailed replicas were made of plaster in the Trier restoration workshops.

Reinhard Schindler , who was the state curator in Saarland at the time, had some replicas made again in the 1960s, and these are now on display in the Wallerfangen Historical Museum .

The Eichenborn tintinnabulum (like the bangles) is officially listed as a reference piece in the scientific world and is accordingly classified as a tintinnabulum - type Wallerfangen.

literature

  • Ulrike Wels-Weyrauch: The pendants and neck rings in southwest Germany and northern Bavaria (= prehistoric bronze finds. Department 11, Volume 1). CH Beck, Munich 1978, pp. 123-125.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Victor Simon: Mémoires de l'Académie nationale de Metz 1851-1852 . Ed .: Académie nationale de Metz. 33rd edition. Metz 1851, p. 250 ( books.google.ca ).
  2. ↑ Jacques Gachina, José Gomez de Soto, Jean-Roger Bourhis, Cécile Véber: Un dépôt de la fin de l'Âge du bronze à Meschers (Charente-Maritime). Remarques sur les bracelets et tintinnabula du type de Vaudrevange en France de l'Ouest. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. Volume 105, 2008, pp. 159-185, here p. 173 f. ( Online ); The spread of razor pendants, which were sometimes made from smaller slices of the tintinnabula, was not taken into account; on this see Albrecht Jockenhövel : On some late urn field bronzes from the Rhine-Main area. In: Herbert Lorenz (Ed.): Studies on the Bronze Age - Festschrift for Wilhelm Albert v. Well. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1981, pp. 131–149, here: p. 138.
  3. ↑ Reinhard Schindler : Studies on the prehistoric settlement and fortification system of the Saarland. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 1968.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Echt: The grave decoration of the Celtic princess von Wallerfangen. From the pond into the treasury. Booklet accompanying the exhibition from April 27 to July 8, 2001 in the Wallerfangen Local History Museum. Association for local research, Wallerfangen 2001.
  5. ↑ Cécile Véber: Métallurgie des Dépôts de bronzes à la fin de l'âge du bronze final (IXe - VIIIe av JC.) Dans le domaine Sarre-Lorraine. Archaeopress, Oxford 2004.
  6. ↑ Stefan Michelbacher: On a hill between two swamps - The Tintinnabulum vom Eichenborn in Wallerfangen and explanations of the reproduction. 2018.
  7. ^ Cécile Veber, Michel Pernot: Étude technique de cinq objets du dépôt de Farébersviller (Moselle). In: Revue d'Archéométrie . tape 24 , no. 1 , 2000, ISSN  0399-1237 , p. 5-12 , doi : 10.3406 / arsci.2000.984 .
  8. ↑ Günter Ludwig , thoughts on the use of the Wallerfanger Tintinnabulum, dec. 2019.
  9. ^ Albrecht Jockenhövel: To some late urn field bronzes of the Rhine-Main area. In: Herbert Lorenz (Ed.): Studies on the Bronze Age - Festschrift for Wilhelm Albert v. Well. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1981, pp. 131–149, here: p. 138.
  10. ↑ Günter Wegner: The prehistoric river finds from the Main and from the Rhine near Mainz (= material booklets for Bavarian prehistory. Series A: Finds inventories and excavation findings. Booklet 30). Lassleben, Kallmünz 1976, p. 92.
  11. ^ Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen and his story. 1953.
  12. ↑ On Victor Simon see Auguste Prost: Notice sur M. Victor Simon et sur ses travaux. In: Mémoires de l'Académie impériale de Metz. Volume 47, 1865–1866, pp. 189–238 ( online ).
  13. ^ Victor Simon: Mémoire sur des antiquités trouvées près de Vaudrevange. In: Mémoires de l'Académie impériale de Metz. Volume 33, Part 1, 1851, pp. 231–258 ( online ).
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Adler , Gerd Weisgerber :  Waller catch. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 33, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 , pp. 143–149 (here: p. 144).
  15. ↑ Rudolf Echt : landfills from the late Urnfield period, fortifications and magnificent grave from the Hallstatt period in Wallerfangen, district of Saarlouis. In: Rudolf Echt: Contributions to the Iron Age and the Gallo-Roman Period in the Saar-Mosel area (= Saarbrücker Studies and Materials for Classical Studies. Volume 9). Habelt, Bonn 2003, pp. 29–74, here: pp. 39–43.
  16. ↑ Gerhard Müller: WALLERFANGEN - Roman mining on azurite and the production of Egyptian blue. 2010.
  17. ↑ Hans-Peter Kuhnen (Ed.): Propaganda. Power. History. Archeology on the Rhine and Moselle in the service of National Socialism (= series of publications by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier. No. 24). Trier 2002.