Waldalgesheim prince grave
The Waldalgesheimer Fürstengrab is a chariot grave of a Celtic woman of the upper social class (princess) from the time around 330-320 BC, discovered in 1869 . Chr. In Waldalgesheim in Rhineland-Palatinate .
Thanks to the richest range of finds that have been excavated to date, with a complete ensemble of costume and jewelry items and everyday goods, some with elaborate ornamentation and decorations, the Waldalgesheim site has achieved a key position in the scientific research of the Latène period . Therefore, one of the four art styles of this time is called the Waldalgesheim style . The finds are now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn , where they form the heart of the permanent exhibition “Celts in the Rhineland”, which opened in June 2014. Some replicas are also exhibited in the Waldalgesheim town hall.
The grave was probably under a mound in a wooden burial chamber. According to the social class, the deceased was buried together with a two-wheeled chariot with horses, from which iron pieces of equipment have been preserved.
The personal costume components of the noble woman included gold neck, arm and ankle rings (torques), which are decorated with plant ornaments and human masks. A bronze drinking set was also part of the equipment of the burial chamber: the tubular jug is 32.7 cm high. It represents a masterpiece of the bronze casting, the art of driving and the decoration technique. The lid with a handle shaped like a horse, the rim, the spout, the handle and the base were cast and turned. The body of the vessel is blown and made up of two parts. A plant frieze and abstract geometric motifs are engraved on the upper part and in the middle. The handle ends in a human head . The Celts like to decorate their cult and secular objects and jewelry with depictions of gods, especially their three main gods according to Celtic iconographic conventions: the ram's head represents the patron god Teutates, to which the lying S-spirals (ram's horns) also belong, the human head with mistletoe leaves stands for Esus, Taranis, lord of heaven and fertility, fits the horse, which is highly revered by the Celts. A horse with a human head is shown on the similarly designed jug by Reinheim.
An approximately 23 cm high bronze bucket comes from the Greek region of southern Italy and shows with its decorations how the Celtic craftsmen developed their own sense of style based on the Mediterranean models.
The Waldalgesheim aristocratic grave can be classified with this bucket as the last of a whole chain of similarly furnished graves that were built since the middle of the 5th century BC. For about 100 years there was a custom in the Hunsrück to bury high-ranking personalities, both men and women, in elaborate burial chambers. This is also shown by the tubular jug from the Waldalgesheim find. In her costume accessories, however, the rich woman oriented herself to a Celtic art style that emerged in the 4th century BC, especially in southern Germany, Switzerland, central France, Bohemia and Moravia.
There are bronze parts of the carriage that was given to the princess in the grave, e. B. a yoke attachment with two unspecified birds received. They associate the vehicle with speed, the sky and war.
History since the find
The grave was discovered on October 18, 1869 by the Waldalgesheim farmer Peter Heckert while digging a beet pile . In 1870 a report appeared in Bonn about the find of the grave, published by the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland , in which the finds were listed with precise illustrations. In the decades that followed, however, the place where the grave lay disappeared from memory. It was not until 1997 that the aerial archaeologist Michael Schönherr found the site again. The Waldalgesheim community has had a development plan since 2002 , which also includes the grave site and threatens to build over it.
Finds
The pictures come from the publication of the Society of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland in 1870:
literature
- Albrecht Greule , Hans-Eckart Joachim : Waldalgesheim. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 33, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 , pp. 120-122. (on-line)
- Sylvia et al. Paul F. Botheroyd: Lexicon of Celtic Mythology. Munich 1992.
- Hans-Eckart Joachim: Waldalgesheim. The grave of a Celtic princess. Catalogs Rhein.Landesmus. Bonn 3. Bonn / Cologne 1995.
- Hans-Eckart Joachim in: Frank Günter Zehnder (Hrsg.): 100 pictures and objects. Archeology and art in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn. Cologne 1999, p. 34 f. (Yoke attachment).
- Hans-Helmut Wegner in: Jürgen Kunow , Hans-Helmut Wegner (Ed.): Prehistory in the Rhineland. Cologne 2006, p. 511 f.
- Otto-Herman Frey: To the figurative representations from Waldalgesheim. In: Thomas Stöllner (Ed.): Europa Celtica. Espelkamp 2006, pp. 95-115.
Web links
- Compilation by Prof. Michael Schönherr
- The grave find of Waldalgesheim (PDF file; 13.9 MB), explained by Ernst aus'm Weerth (1876 to 1883 first director of the Provinzialmuseum Bonn, today's Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn)
- Prince's grave Waldalgesheim
- "The Prince's Grave in Waldalgesheim ..." (PDF file; 5.5 MB)
Coordinates: 49 ° 57 ′ 18.6 ″ N , 7 ° 49 ′ 46.6 ″ E