The article describes the features and finds from the Hallstatt period burial mound at Erlangen -Kriegenbrunn (Germany). Hermann Hornung excavated this mound in 1930 after non -professionals had destroyed the central grave. Shortly after the excavation, Hornung published his results in two small articles. In the 1970s Bernhard Hänsel started collecting all available information about the burial mound and initiated anthropological analyses. Although Michael Hoppe had discussed the mound in his work about the Hallstatt period in Central Franconia (1986), Hänsel was convinced that it needed further investigation. Long after his retirement, he gave all his documents about Kriegenbrunn to the author in order to publish the mound again, make corrections and particularly ascertain the number of persons in the several graves at Kriegenbrunn.
The article presents the results of archaeological research carried out in connection with the construction of the S3 expressway. At the site in Szymanowice, traces of a settlement from the younger Stone Age and the Bronze Age were discovered. In the course of the research, relics of buildings were distinguished that could be connected with adjacent features to form separate homesteads, as well as urn graves and relics of burial mounds. Some of the finds can be associated with the population of the Góra group, but most of them come from the period of the Lusatian culture development. The burial zone of this culture was adjacent to a slightly later residential zone.
This paper presents the results of archaeological excavations at the burial mound cemetery used by a Wielbark culture community at Palędzie Kościelne, in the Gniezno Lake District. The sources provide further contribution to a better understanding of the funeral rites of the communities occupying north-east Wielkopolska during the Roman Iron Age.
In archaeological discussions one may observe two fundamental and complementary aspects of burial mound symbolism – cosmological and sociological. In the first instance the process of building the mound represents a ritual reconstruction of the world’s structure. In the other instance it attests to the hierarchical ordering of the community. The complementarity with regard to the cosmological aspect means that the range and structure of the community transcends the borders of temporality. There is one other aspect, however, which could be labeled as the ‘communicative aspect’. It confirms the symbolic ‘inscribing’ of the dead into the cosmic and social order and their active role in sustaining the functioning and integrity of various spheres of existence. In consequence, the memory of the dead ancestors was guaranteed and the respect towards the deceased was not only an obligation dictated by the gods, but it also remained something for which the living constantly cared. This relative sense of human existence may be encountered in Homeric eschatology.
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