Jastorf urn burial ground

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The urn grave field of Jastorf is located between the Bad Bevensen districts of Jastorf and Klein Hesebeck in the Uelzen district in Lower Saxony . The prehistoric burial ground was an urn occupied burial place from the pre-Roman Iron Age . At the beginning of the 20th century it was archaeologically examined by the prehistorian Gustav Schwantes (1881–1960). The location of the burial ground gave its name to the Jastorf culture .

description

The site is a slight hill that used to be covered with heather and is now covered by forest. It is located between the banks of the Ilmenau and the road from Jastorf to Klein Hesebeck. The site of the find was unused sandy soil at the end of the 19th century, which was slightly undulating in the manner of vaulters .

Gustav Schwantes excavated an urn cemetery in the summer of 1897 as a 16-year-old student at Heidbrack near Bad Bevensen. During this time he learned that a farmer in nearby Jastorf had also discovered old urns on his heather field. During an initial inspection, Schwantes found extensive stone paving beneath the surface of the earth, which indicated urn graves. When he returned to systematic excavations in the fall of 1897, the ground had meanwhile been ransacked. After urns found in Jastorf became known, school children in particular dug urns. Schwantes started an excavation anyway , as he suspected undiscovered burials under the excavated sand heaps. During his multi-year excavations, which he carried out during the holiday season, he was able to recover 160 urns. Schwantes handed the finds over to the Hannover Provincial Museum for investigation , which took over part of the excavation costs. Schwantes estimated the original size of the burial ground at up to 500 burials in urns and as incendiary graves.

Damaged clay pots with a missing handle or a damaged base were often used as funeral urns. The decoration often consisted of alternating smooth and rough surfaces or of incised lines. The urns contained corpse burns carefully cleaned of coal and ash . The urns were each covered with a clay bowl. Many urns were surrounded by a stone mantle for protection. There were relatively few additional vessels that only contained soil. Above the urns there was a small to extensive paving, which was found mainly in the southeast of the burial ground. The metal finds, which were placed on top of the corpse burn of the urn, included belt hooks, plate brooches, goiter pins, earrings, and arm and neck rings.

literature

  • Gustav Schwantes: Jastorf in: The oldest urn cemeteries near Uelzen and Lüneburg . Hannover 1911, pp. 95-138.
  • Willi Wegewitz : Gustav Schwantes and the urn cemeteries of the pre-Roman iron and Roman imperial times in the Uelzen district . In: The Adventure of Archeology . Isensee, Oldenburg 1994, ISBN 3-89442-230-0 , p. 48-58 .

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 3 ′ 2.2 ″  N , 10 ° 36 ′ 18.5 ″  E