Walther Veeck

Walther Veeck (born June 28, 1886 in Wickenrodt ; † February 11, 1941 ) was a German archaeologist who is considered a specialist in the Merovingian period .

Life

Veeck studied German, history and archeology in Heidelberg , Bonn and Göttingen . During his studies he became a member of the Frankonia Heidelberg fraternity in 1906 . He received his doctorate on "Count Heinrich von Schwarzburg , Administrator of the Archbishopric Bremen, 1463 to 1496 and Bishop of Münster 1466 to 1496". After Veeck had served as a war volunteer in the First World War , he first worked as an archaeologist in Marburg , since 1921 at the State Collection of Antiquities in Stuttgart - initially as a volunteer, since 1925 as a research assistant , since 1928 as an assistant, from 1930 as a conservator and finally after Peter Goessler's departure in 1934 as chief curator and in 1936 as director.

Veeck carried out numerous excavations that covered the periods from the Neolithic to modern times . Excavations in a Neolithic settlement at Viesenhäuser Hof near Stuttgart-Mühlhausen , at the Hallstatt- era Heuneburg or in 1936 at Hohenstaufen Castle should be mentioned . Veeck's focus, however, was on the Merovingian period : his work on the Alamanni in Württemberg, published in 1931 , listed all the finds known up to that point and is therefore of importance to this day. Although his chronological conceptions of the Merovingian era are largely out of date, he gave broad scope to questions of settlement and economic history, which are still among the research desiderata today. He was also very interested in the connections between grave finds and place names, which Robert Gradmann had used as a criterion for delimiting the old settlement area from the areas that were later to be developed. Veeck pursued in particular the question of a chronological differentiation of place names, a topic that has also occupied archaeological research again and again since then. Veeck carried out the investigation of the Alemannic burial ground in Holzgerlingen (district of Böblingen) and thus showed the possibilities that the evaluation of completely excavated burial grounds offers research. His excavations in the cemetery of Oberflacht , which is characterized by its wood preservation, are also of importance.

Works (selection)

• The Alemanni in Württemberg. Germanic monuments of the Migration Period 1, Berlin 1931
• Cremation graves in Alemannic row grave cemeteries in Württemberg. Germania 7, 1924, pp. 89-91
• The Alemanni cemetery in Oberflacht. Publications of the Württemberg State Office for Monument Preservation 2, Stuttgart 1924
• About the status of Alemannic-Franconian research in Württemberg. Reports of the Roman-Germanic Commission 15, 1923/24, pp. 41–57
• The row graveyard of Holzgerlingen. Find reports from Schwaben NF 3, 1926, pp. 154–201

literature

• Obituary by Oscar Paret In: Fund reports Schwaben NF 11, 1938–1950, pp. 11–13
• Literature by and about Walther Veeck in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willy Nolte (Ed.): Burschenschafter Stammrolle. List of the members of the German Burschenschaft according to the status of the summer semester 1934. Berlin 1934. P. 512.