Clay stool
Small clay stools were found on settlement sites of the Bernburg culture on the Dölauer Heide near Halle and on the Schalkenburg near Quenstedt , a district of the town of Arnstein in the district of Mansfeld-Südharz in Saxony-Anhalt .
Seven of the finds were made on the Schalkenburg and two in the Dölauer Heide. Three objects had four feet, the rest had two sled-like runners. The roughly saddle-like top was, apart from one particularly small one, perforated in the middle. One clay stool was decorated with groups of lines, another had wavy narrow sides. The find situation gave no indication of the function of the objects. The stools are miniatures, that of the Long Mountain is 19.8 cm long and 6 cm high.
Analogies
In the exhibition catalog on the Neolithic Age in Bulgaria (Georgiev et al. 1981), roughly comparable, but imperforate clay structures (Fig. 177 a and b) have been interpreted as little chairs or tables. With the dating of the Krivodol-Salcutza culture, they are older than the clay objects of the Bernburg culture.
There are shape parallels from the Moravian region for the clay stools in the Middle Elbe-Saale region. They belong to the Jevisovice CI culture and time horizon, which is also seen as somewhat older than the Bernburg culture. The similarities between the Central German and Moravian clay stools are so striking that a transfer of ideas in the course of an acculturation process running from Moravia-Bohemia to the Middle Elbe-Saale region must be considered. In the case of the Moravian clay stools, A. Medunovâ-Benesovâ (1964) drew attention to south-east European shape parallels to the Moravian clay stools that exist in Yugoslavia ( Vučedol ), Cucuteni (Romania), Sveti-Kyrillovo (Bulgaria) and in the Aegean region.
interpretation
The structures are generally interpreted as cult objects in literature. Individual authors have considered an interpretation as children's toys (miniature furniture). In the Neolithic and Eneolithic periods of Europe, there are statuettes in small format (standing figures in the narrower sense) and seat sculptures in which the simply shaped seat is partly separated and partly integrated into the representation of the figures. Thus, an interpretation as seating furniture (chair, armchair, stool) can be considered. Since the use of a seat in prehistoric societies was reserved for socially high-ranking personalities or deities, the Central German objects can be thought of as thrones of gods , i.e. seats for separately stored images of gods. Another interpretation would be as altars, as there are also small clay objects with a flat surface, which are known as tables. However, the perforation indicates that it was used to insert an object.
In the exhibition catalog about the Neolithic in Bulgaria (Fig. 151 b) shows exactly this configuration.
literature
- Hermann Behrens: Some remarks on southeastern influences in the Central German Neolithic In: Nachrichten aus Niedersachsens Urgeschichte , Volume 52 1983 Lax Hildesheim ISSN 0342-1406 .S. 245 ff
- Harald Meller; State Office for Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, State Museum for Prehistory (Ed.): Cult device or children's toys? Clay stool from Halle-Dölauer Heide and Quenstedt, district of Mansfelder Land In: Beauty, Power and Death. 120 finds from 120 years of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Volume accompanying the special exhibition from December 11, 2001 to April 28, 2002 pp. 214–215