Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)The Copper Age
Derfflinger Hügel
DatedEst. 3500–500 BCE
Photo Aschroet · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Derfflinger Hügel is a prehistoric and early historic burial mound, used in several phases, near Kalbsrieth in the Kyffhäuserkreis, Thuringia, Germany. It is a protected cultural monument (Kulturdenkmal).
It was excavated in 1901 under the direction of the archaeologist Armin Möller (1865–1938), and the results were published in 1912. The mound contained numerous burials, the earliest dating to the Neolithic. The finds are now in the Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Thüringens in Weimar.
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Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Derfflinger Hügel
It stands on the highest elevation in the surrounding area and is visible from a distance.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The mound lies 1.7 km south-east of Kalbsrieth, towards Schönewerda, on the left bank of the Unstrut. It stands on the highest elevation in the surrounding area and is visible from a distance. Another burial mound, the Huthügel, lies 800 m to the north. It was raised only by people of the Corded Ware culture and contained, besides finds of that period, only the remains of a possible Early Bronze Age secondary burial. Further Corded Ware burials have been found in at least five places in the vicinity, and isolated finds come from several places within the parish.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The natural ground beneath the mound is limestone, under which runs a layer of gypsum. The mound was enlarged repeatedly. It was probably approximately round at first, but was later extended strongly to the east and acquired a roughly trapezoidal shape. The south and west sides are well preserved, whereas the north and east sides are heavily ploughed, and skeletal remains and potsherds are said to have been exposed there repeatedly. The original height was probably 4.10 m. The north-south diameter was 17.20 m at the time of Möller's investigation but was probably at least 28 m originally.
The oldest phase is a natural rock knoll with a simple grave pit, heaped over with a layer of earth 0.6 m thick. This was covered with a layer of small slabs and chunks of sandstone and limestone, 0.2 m thick in the middle and 0.1 m at the edge, and above that a second layer of earth about 0.5 to 0.6 m thick. Möller estimated the diameter of the primary mound at no less than 12 m. In a final phase in the Early Bronze Age the mound was enlarged to its present size.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The oldest burial lay in a simple earth pit cut into the top of the natural knoll. The pit was 0.6 m wide and 1.1 m long at the top (0.98 m at the base), and only 0.25 to 0.28 m deep, with walls and floor worked but not smoothed. It was filled with black earth and held a skeleton in an extremely crouched position. The bones were very poorly preserved and no grave goods were found.
At the foot of the east side of the primary mound stood a complex of two stone chambers and two stone pavements, built on the natural ground. The western chamber was a small east-west oriented Urdolmen made of two wall stones and a capstone of red sandstone, with three sandstone slabs lying on the capstone. The whole was covered by a stone heap 0.9 m high made of field stones and 35 to 40 fragments of grindstones. It could not be established with certainty whether the dolmen had served for a regular burial, as apart from two teeth no human remains were found. It contained two pottery vessels: an undecorated four-handled amphora 15.3 cm high and 12 cm in maximum diameter, a typical vessel form of the Baalberge culture, and a handled cup 8.7 cm high with a rim diameter of 16.2 cm. Between the stone heap over the dolmen and the stone cist to the east lay a cup-marked stone of brown-coal quartzite, 46 cm long, 41 cm wide and 18 cm thick, with five cup marks on its upper surface.
The stone cist, also oriented east-west, was made of a base slab and four wall slabs, all of sandstone, with the joints of the wall slabs smeared with gypsum. Gypsum remains and fragments suggest that it originally had a cover slab. Its inner length was 1.7 m and its width 0.94 m. An upright slab in front of the east end formed an antechamber 0.6 m wide, open to north and south, in which charcoal, ash, burnt bones and indeterminate potsherds were found. The cist held two burials, only one of them well preserved: the complete skeleton of a man aged about 33 to 40, lying on his left side in a crouched position with his head to the east and facing south, with a healed blow injury on the skull. The second burial was a child aged 1.5 to 2.5 years, of which only a few very thin skull fragments survived.
The grave goods were numerous. In front of the man's forehead lay or stood four pottery vessels: a decorated and an undecorated globular amphora and two decorated four-handled pots. A bowl lay by his feet. Between his lower legs lay a double pin of bone, on the outside of the left shin a simple bone pin, and above the left knee a bone awl. A flint axe was found in the earth above the chest. Three boar tusks, at least two of them perforated, served as ornaments: two lay below the awl above the knee and the third on the left foot. Food offerings had also been placed with him: the lower jaw, an upper arm bone, a thigh bone, two feet and two toe bones of a pig, and a lower leg of a crane.
North and south of the cist lay two oval stone pavements. The southern, 0.7 m from the cist and 0.6 m above the natural ground, measured 1.1 m east to west and 1 m north to south. It consisted of a central stone 60 cm in diameter ringed by nine smaller irregular slabs of yellow and red sandstone, and discolouration, ash and charcoal show that it served as a hearth. The northern, 0.5 m north of the cist, was slightly trough-shaped and measured 1.55 m north to south and slightly more east to west. It was made only of smaller red sandstone slabs, with its northern edge bordered by vertical slabs and the joints carefully filled with sandy clay. It too had been used as a hearth, and unburnt bone fragments, including some of cattle, and indeterminate potsherds were found there.
At the south-eastern edge of the primary mound three Corded Ware burials were found. The dead lay on their right sides in a crouched position, heads to the west and facing south, in a roughly north-south row 0.6 m apart and at stepped depths. The graves of the southern and middle burials cut through the stone layer of the primary mound, so that the southern body lay below it and the middle one within it, while the northern was laid above it. The skeletons were in part quite well preserved. Sex was not determined, but a position on the right side with the head to the west is typical of male burials in the Corded Ware culture. The southern skeleton showed several pathological growths on the foot bones and a healed fracture of the right shin, and its heavily worn teeth suggest a relatively high age at death. It had no grave goods. Behind the skull of the middle burial lay a cord-decorated beaker and an axe. The beaker is 18.2 cm high and measures 5.5 cm across the base, 8.5 cm at the narrowest point of the neck and 12 cm at the mouth, with spiral cord decoration from the mouth to about 7.3 cm above the base. The axe is of grey-black serpentine, 11.4 cm long, 5 cm wide and 4.8 cm thick. In front of the hips of the northern burial lay a flint axe 8.2 cm long, 4.7 cm wide and 1.7 cm thick.
In the middle of the Bronze Age mound fill, about 1.3 m north of the east-west axis and at a depth of 1.2 to 1.3 m, Möller found a tree-trunk coffin of the Aunjetitz culture. It was oriented east-west, with a preserved length of 3.9 m, a width of 0.65 m and a height of 0.55 to 0.6 m, and walls 8 to 10 cm thick. Its south side had been damaged by a later burial. The skeleton, buried with the head to the west, was poorly preserved and was damaged further during the excavation: nothing survived of the skull, only a rib and part of a collarbone of the upper body, and only the two thigh bones were relatively well preserved. The coffin held five grave goods. A bronze or copper fish hook 3.9 cm long lay between the head and the end of the coffin. The others, for which no exact position is recorded, were a faceted hammer axe of blue-green Kieselschiefer and three pottery vessels: a typical Aunjetitz cup, a bowl with a wart-shaped handle, and a miniature urn only 4.2 cm high and 4.6 cm in maximum diameter. It is not certain that the bowl was placed in the coffin itself, as it was found between the lower legs where the coffin floor had not survived; Möller could not exclude that it came from beneath the coffin, but found no further grave there.
Four La Tène burials were found on the east side of the enlarged mound at depths between 0.6 and 1 m: one at the north-eastern edge, two at the eastern edge slightly north of the east-west axis, and one in the north-east at the base of the mound on the natural ground, slightly outside the surviving mound fill. All four were urn burials.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The oldest burial cannot be dated precisely for lack of grave goods. The remaining Neolithic burials belong to the Baalberge culture (4200–3100 BCE), the Globular Amphora culture (3100–2700 BCE) and the Corded Ware culture (2800–2200 BCE). Further burials date from the Early Bronze Age Aunjetitz culture (2300–1550 BCE), the Late Iron Age La Tène period (450 BCE–0), the Merovingian period (5th century–751) and, in general terms, the early Christian period. One burial could not be dated at all.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The origin of the name is unclear. Möller assumed a connection with the Brandenburg field marshal Georg von Derfflinger, who led his troops through Thuringia in June 1675 in the war against Sweden. Möller could not establish whether Derfflinger also passed through Kalbsrieth.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
The mound attracted the interest of several amateur researchers in the 19th century. A trial excavation on the west side is recorded, but it is unclear when or by whom it was carried out. The Rechnungshauptmann Reinhard of Buttstädt dug without success on the north side. Oscar Förtsch of Halle (Saale) and the Kalbsrieth mayor Freysold also dug on the north side, and found a black polished urn that was taken to the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle, where Möller was later unable to find it. Between July and October 1901 Armin Möller, curator of the Stadtmuseum Weimar, carried out extensive excavations at the mound over six weeks and published them in 1912.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
German Hügelgräber and megalithic mounds
Burial mounds are found across Germany, from the northern plain to the south. Those of the Middle Bronze Age give a whole culture its name: the Tumulus culture (Hügelgräberkultur), which was dominant in Central Europe from about 1600 to 1300 BCE and buried its dead beneath mounds. It descended from the Unetice culture and covered parts of southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and France. Its society was a warrior society, as the weapons in the graves show. The Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture, which followed it, preferred cremation, and the Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age revived the great mound for chieftains.
Hallstatt-period mounds can be spectacular. The Hochdorf grave in Baden-Württemberg, of about 530 BCE, was found in 1968 and excavated in 1978 to 1979. Its mound, originally 6 metres high and about 60 metres across, had been worn down to about 1 metre. Inside lay a man of about fifty on a bronze recliner with eight wheels, wearing a gold-plated torc, with a four-wheeled wagon and drinking horns.
In the north, many mounds are older and belong to the Funnel Beaker culture, whose stone-chambered tombs are described in the articles on northern German megalithic tombs. Here a mound may cover a megalithic chamber, and the Atlas's classification sometimes cannot tell the two apart without a field visit.
Dating usually combines typology, pottery and metalwork and, where timber survives, tree-ring dating. Many mounds have been ploughed down, as Hochdorf shows.
When visiting, look for mounds in groups in woodland, where they survive best, for the hollow of an old central trench, and for kerbs of stone.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture, Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Heuneburg, Wikipedia: Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 3100 BCE
Die älteste Bestattung lässt sich mangels Grabbeigaben nicht genau datieren; die restlichen neolithischen Bestattungen lassen sich der Baalberger Kultur (4200–3100 v. Chr.), der Kugelamphoren-Kultur (3100–2700 v. Chr.) und der Schnurkeramischen Kultur (2800–2200 v. Chr.) zuordnen.
Source - 1550 BCE
Weitere Bestattungen stammen aus der frühbronzezeitlichen Aunjetitzer Kultur (2300–1550 v. Chr.), der späteisenzeitlichen Latènezeit (450 v. Chr.–0), der Merowingerzeit (5. Jahrhundert–751) sowie allgemein aus frühchristlicher Zeit.
Source - 1675
Möller nahm eine Verbindung zu dem brandenburgischen Generalfeldmarschall Georg von Derfflinger an, der im Juni 1675 im Krieg gegen Schweden seine Truppen durch Thüringen führte.
Source - 1901
1901 erfolgte eine archäologische Grabung unter Leitung des Archäologen Armin Möller (1865–1938), die 1912 publiziert wurde.
Source - 1901
Zwischen Juli und Oktober 1901 führte schließlich Armin Möller, Kustos des Stadtmuseums Weimar, sechs Wochen lang umfangreiche Grabungen am Hügel durch, die er 1912 publizierte.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
6 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. German barrows ( Hugelgraber) run from the Neolithic (construction in central and south-west Germany c. 3500 BC and northern and central Germany c. 3400 BC) to the Late Bronze and Iron Age.Source for this date
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 51°19′46″ N, 11°21′16″ EFor a GPS or map app: 51.32952, 11.35457
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q31122407wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Derfflinger Hügel 1.jpgAschroetCC0
- Derfflinger Hügel 2.jpgAschroetCC0
- Möller Derfflinger Hügel Schnitt 2.jpgArmin Möller (1865-1938)Public domain
- Möller Derfflinger Hügel Foto.jpgArmin Möller (1865-1938)Public domain
- Möller Derfflinger Hügel Schnitt 1.jpgArmin Möller (1865-1938)Public domain
- Möller Derfflinger Hügel Schnurkeramik Bestattungen Schema.jpgArmin Möller (1865-1938)Public domain
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Lore, kept apart
Legends and claims
These are stories and claims reported by the sources. They are not evidence, and they never stand in for the dating above.
- Tradition
Um den Derfflinger Hügel ranken sich mehrere Sagen: Man dürfe nachts nicht daran vorübergehen, da es dort nicht geheuer sei.
Um den Derfflinger Hügel ranken sich mehrere Sagen: Man dürfe nachts nicht daran vorübergehen, da es dort nicht geheuer sei. Am nahe gelegenen Weg soll eine Kutsche mit kopflosen Pferden vorbeifahren. Zigeuner sollen hier ihre Toten beigesetzt haben. Außerdem soll in dem Hügel ein mächtiger König in einem silbernen Sarg bestattet sein. Insbesondere letztere Sage wurde von den Anwohnern offenbar sehr ernst genommen. So wurde Möller von einem Gutsinspektor bedrängt, er solle doch tiefer graben, um den Sarg doch noch zu finden. Eine ganz ähnliche Sage ist von dem knapp 50 km östlich gelegenen Grabhügel von Rössen in Leuna in Sachsen-Anhalt überliefert: Dort ist es ein Königsohn in einem goldenen Sarg. Wohl ebenfalls um eine Sage handelt es sich bei der Behauptung, Schäfer würden im Hügel, besonders im Osthang, ihre verendeten Schafe verscharren. Möller konnte bei seiner Grabung keinerlei Tierskelette nachweisen. Auch für Freudenfeuer auf der Spitze des Hügels konnte er keine Belege erbringen. Jedoch war die Hügelkuppe teilweise abgetragen worden, womit entsprechende Ascheschichten möglicherweise nicht erhalten blieben.
Source
Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Derfflinger Hügel" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Derfflinger HügelCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q31122407CC0