Wulfsen horse burial

The horses funeral of Wulfsen is an early medieval burial of three horses in 1974 found on an old Saxon burial ground in the village of Wulfsen in the district of Harburg. The Fund is obtained as paint preparation and will be shown in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg.

Discovery

The site was located on the northeastern edge of the escarpment of a sand pit near Wulfsen where a fossil collector observed a soil discoloration in the summer of 1974, which he considered of archaeological interest. He reported his observation to the Museum of the Principality of Lüneburg, which was forwarded the message to the responsible for the region Helms- Museum. The following excavations on the disturbed by sand mining burial ground a total of 35 inhumations and a horse burial could be documented. The human burials were due to the sandy soil relatively poorly preserved. There were excavated 26 older, oriented in north-south direction and nine younger oriented in east-west direction burials. The graves showed up on two arrowheads in the grave of a teenager on any grave goods. Location: 53 ° 18 ' 23 " N, 10 ° 9' 30" O53.30632510.158425Koordinaten: 53 ° 18 ' 23 " N, 10 ° 9' 30" E

Horses funeral

In a 230 × 240 cm measured, steep-walled pit a funeral of three horses was encountered. Of the animals only bones and teeth were fully present, the bones lay before but only brittle and fragile. Supplements such as bridles were not detectable. All horses were on the left side in the south-north direction, their heads were placed on an elevated part of the mine in an upright posture. The middle horse was with the abdomen in the prone position, his legs and lying east of the animal were strongly bent. The legs of the west in the horse lay in a semi- extended position, it took about half of the pit. The bones were uncovered by a working platform carefully and soaked with cold glue For the recovery, the pit was then covered with lacquer and leimgetränktem crepe paper. The bones were additionally secured with wire and needles. Then the pit was filled with rigid foam and recovered the funeral in a wooden crate as a block. The entire fund is on the about three to four millimeters thick, groomed sand layer with the embedded bone.

The conservation status of bone complicated zoological investigations. The horse lying west was most likely a mare, the other stallions. The animals were relatively small with withers 130-140 cm by today's standards, but had for that time usual body sizes. The age of the animals ranged between five and seven years.

Based on the findings situation as the geographical orientation of the body burials and their addition guide the Fund is dated to the period around 700-800 AD.

Interpretation

The burials correspond due to the addition leadership and its geographical orientation pagan traditions. The younger burials during a period just before this region was completely Christianized, as a result also the burial customs changed fundamentally. The horses funeral was not the warrior graves are clearly assigned. For this reason, it is unclear whether there is here an individual animal or a funeral accompaniment to a human burials. Burials of individual horses are for the Early Middle Ages is not unusual as it shows for example the equestrian grave of Schnelsen, but this triple burial of horses is in the northeastern Lower Saxony unprecedented. More triple burials are, for example, from Mühlhausen and Griefstedt (Thuringia) and Beckum, North Rhine -Westphalia.

Beginning of 2013, a model of the excavation of horses funeral out of Lego was made for the special LEGO journey of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg.