Waldglashütte in Kreickgrund
The Waldglashütte in Kreickgrund was an early medieval glassworks located in the Kreickgrund valley above the Reiherbach , between Polier and Bodenfelde , in what is now Solling , Lower Saxony . It is a glassworks dated to the 9th century in the Carolingian era, which probably produced raw glass for the Corvey Monastery, which was built at that time . This makes the Waldglashütte in Kreickgrund by far the oldest forest glassworks in Europe, which it only anticipated around 300 years later.
location
The Waldglashütte, of which no structures have been preserved above ground, was about two kilometers north of Bodenfelde at the height of the Reiherbach valley, through which the Reiherbach flows, east of the state road 551 at 190 meters above sea level. NN . The site is located in the upper area of a nameless valley, which used to be called Kreickgrund and is an eastern side valley of the Reiherbach valley. Immediately at Glashüttenplatz on the edge of the forest, a small stream runs past, which rises further above near the Heidkopf elevation and flows through the elongated meadow valley of the Kreickgrund, enclosed by the forest. Further down in the valley there was the late medieval forest glassworks in the Reiherbachtal .
In Solling medieval forest glassworks emerge in the 12th century, as the Waldglashutte on Giersberg . In the immediate vicinity of Bodenfelde there are at least 11 former glassworks locations in valleys and higher forest areas. The area between Bodenfelde and Nienover has served as a location for forest glassworks for centuries.
Discovery and excavation
A local researcher discovered the Waldglashütte in Kreickgrund while looking for the location of earlier glassworks in Solling. In doing so, he came across broken glass melting vessels in the creek bed. The site is officially called Glashütte Kreickgrund 3 and is classified as Bo 7 (Bodenfelde).
From August to October 2012, the first small-scale exploratory excavation was carried out at the site under the direction of archaeologist Hans-Georg Stephan from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . Like the excavations that have been ongoing since 2012 at the site of the Waldglashütte in the Reiherbachtal, which is only a few hundred meters away, it was supported by the Solling Association, the patch of Bodenfelde and the city of Uslar. It was found that the glassworks site is severely eroded by the stream and the mountainside and in places covered by rubble. At the site of the find, areas containing charcoal and enriched with red fire clay were discovered, which point to a glass furnace that once existed. At the edge of the stream there were several red sandstones in a row that could have belonged to the stove wall. Small pieces of glazed red clay were identified as the remains of the furnace. Chunks of red sandstone, discolored gray, suggested parts of the port bank on which the melting vessels stood. Only a few greenish glass drops were found on the remains of production. Extraordinary finds were small-format glass melting ports , which differ considerably from what has been found so far. They only have a wall thickness of three to seven millimeters and a volume of up to 1.7 liters. Probably they were made on turntables as opposed to medieval ports which were handmade. It is known that the Romans used this technique with a thin wall thickness and covered the harbors with clay . During earlier excavations in Corvey Monastery , fragments of glass harbors made using a turntable were also found. This led the archaeologists to assume that raw glass was melted in the Waldglashütte in Kreickgrund, which was then processed in the monastery. The hardness of the shards found near Bodenfelde indicated a melting temperature of 1200 - 1300 degrees, which is around 200 degrees higher than usual. The finds at the glassworks site also included remains of spherical pots as Old Saxon utility ceramics, which support the date of the 9th century.
Another excavation was carried out by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in autumn 2015. The Institute for Archeology, Historical Monuments and Art History at the University of Bamberg and the Berlin University of Technology and Economics were involved . The excavation was preceded by a non-destructive geophysical prospecting using georadar by the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics . The excavation results and finds were presented to the public at the end of 2015. Further investigations are planned for spring 2016.
See also
literature
- Hans-Georg Stephan : The Solling in the Middle Ages. Archeology, landscape, history in the Weser and Leinebergland. Settlement and cultural landscape development. The Counts of Dassel and Nienover. Dormagen 2011, ISBN 9783938473153
- Hans-Georg Stephan: Medieval forest glassworks in the Weserbergland. New research on the beginnings of the technology of the European wood-ash-glass in the Carolingian period and on a 15th century hut landscape on the Upper Weser. In: City - Country - Castle. Festschrift for Sabine Felgenhauer-Schmiedt (= Studia honoraria 34). Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2013, ISBN 978-3-89646-553-5 , pp. 377-393.
- Hans-Georg Stephan: Archaeological investigations into medieval deserted villages and forest glassworks in Solling near Bodenfelde in the wider regional and pan-European context , in: Göttinger Jahrbuch 61 (2013), p. 325ff
Web links
- Researchers come across glassworks from the Middle Ages in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from October 12, 2012 and in the Göttinger Tageblatt from October 13, 2012
- Eva Werler: Discovered Europe's oldest glassworks in Bodenfelde as an article with video on NDR.de from December 21, 2015
- Europe's oldest glassworks in the Weser Uplands? in Dewezet on July 11, 2015 (pdf)
- Feverish search for Carolingian glassworks in: Daily Anzeiger Holzminden from September 12, 2015
- Discovered during excavations: Medieval glass furnace in Solling in HNA from October 7, 2016
- Sensation: Europe's oldest glassworks from the 9th century near Bodenfelde in HNA on December 2, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Map with the locations of 11 forest glassworks near Bodenfelde
- ↑ See literature: Hans-Georg Stephan: The Solling in the Middle Ages. P. 522.
- ↑ Georadar looks into the dark ( memento of the original from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Daily Anzeiger Holzminden from April 23, 2015
- ↑ Glashütte older than expected Online in Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine (HNA) from December 21, 2015
- ↑ Jürgen Dumnitz: Glashütte older than expected as PDF in HNA from December 21, 2015
Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 46.8 ″ N , 9 ° 33 ′ 19 ″ E