Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)The Bronze Age
Leubingen tumulus
Datedc. 2000–1892 BCE
Photo Regani · Public domainSource file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Leubingen tumulus (German: Fürstengrab von Leubingen) is an Early Bronze Age 'princely' grave of the Leubingen culture, later known as the Unetice or Únětice culture, dating to about 1940 BC. It is located near the hills of Kyffhäuser in Leubingen, an Ortsteil of Sömmerda in the eastern German state of Thuringia.
The tomb is considered one of the most opulent elite graves of the Early Bronze Age in Western Europe. It is protected as a Kulturdenkmal.
Read on Wikipedia3 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Age sources
How old this site is, and who says so.
Range across all claimsc. 2000–1892 BCE
MeasuredWhat this badge means
A physical measurement of this site: a radiocarbon date, a tree-ring count, a luminescence date, or a record that can itself be dated.
- 1992–1892 BCERadiocarbon datingDendrochronologic testing of the oaken beams dated the grave. The source gives one year, so it is shown as a 100-year window (D-08).Source: en.wikipedia.org
- 2000 BCEWikipedia: Leubingen tumulus (infobox)Source: en.wikipedia.org
- 1940 BCEWikipedia: Leubingen tumulusSource: en.wikipedia.org
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
Leubingen tumulus
Around 210 cubic-meters of stones and 3,600 cubic-meters of earth were moved in its construction.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
The earthen mound is 7 metres (23 ft) high and contains a burial chamber of 3.90 by 2.10 metres (12.8 by 6.9 ft) with a maximum height of 1.70 metres (5.6 ft). The original height of the mound was around 8.5 metres (28 ft) and its diameter was 34 metres (112 ft). Around 210 cubic-meters of stones and 3,600 cubic-meters of earth were moved in its construction.
The chamber has roughly the form of a hut or house of the time, with a saddle-shaped roof of heavy oak beams covered with stones.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
In a central position lay the body of a man about 50 years old. According to the final report of the excavator, the body of a young man was draped over the man's loins at an angle of ca. 40°; this was not mentioned in the earlier notes.
Beside the right shoulder lay an open bracelet, two pins, two rings and a spiral made of gold. At the feet lay a pierced stone battle-hammer, a rectangular stone (possibly an anvil), two bronze edge-axes, three bronze chisels and three bronze dagger blades placed in leather and oak bark scabbards. The blade of a dagger (German: Stabdolch) was also found. In a corner of the chamber stood a large ceramic pot with brown and black decorations and little ears on the shoulder. The finds are now part of the permanent exhibition of the Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
The site was first unearthed in 1877 by the Jena art professor and archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch (1831–1898), working at the behest of the Historische Kommission der Provinz Sachsen. He kept a diary and later submitted an official report, but the two differ in important respects, including the location of the burial chamber and of the grave goods within it. The diary is today deemed the more reliable source. After the excavations the mound was filled in again.
During road construction in 2011, excavations at a nearby site revealed the remains of one of the largest buildings in prehistoric Germany, a longhouse 44 m x 10.50 m, or 470 square meters (5,057 square feet) of floor space, together with a trove of bronze objects and a cemetery of 44 farmers.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Dendrochronological testing of the oaken beams has placed the grave at circa 1942 BC. Because of the effort required for its construction and the quality of the grave goods, the buried person must have been of great importance.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
In 1912 the Königlicher Landrat ordered the Leubingen authorities to prevent agricultural use of the mound. Between the 8th and 11th century AD the local community, at the time Slavic, established a cemetery of about 70 graves in and around the hill.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
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 descended from the Unetice culture.
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
- 1942 BCE
Dendrochronologic testing of the oaken beams has placed the grave at circa 1942 BC.
Source - 1940 BCE
The Leubingen tumulus (German: Fürstengrab von Leubingen) is an Early Bronze Age "princely" grave of the Leubingen culture, (which, after further finds at Auntjetitz became known as Auntjetitz or Únětice culture), dating to about 1940 BC.
Source - 1877
The site was first unearthed in 1877 by Jena art professor and archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch (1831–1898).
Source - 1912
In 1912, the local Königlicher Landrat ordered the Leubingen authorities to prevent its agricultural use.
Source - 2011
During road construction in 2011 excavations on the site nearby have also revealed the remains of one of the largest buildings in prehistoric Germany, a longhouse 44 m x 10.50 m, or 470 square meters (5,057 square feet) of floor space, a trove of bronze objects, and a cemetery of 44 farmers.
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
8 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
1992–1892 BCEHow this date was established: Radiocarbon datingDendrochronologic testing of the oaken beams dated the grave. The source gives one year, so it is shown as a 100-year window (D-08).Source for this date
Measured facts
- Culture
- Únětice cultureSource: Culture
- Location
- Near the Kyffhäuser hills in Leubingen, Thuringia, GermanySource: Location
- Excavation
- Friedrich Klopfleisch, 1877Source: Excavation
- Nearby longhouse
- 44 m x 10.50 m, with 470 square meters of floor spaceSource: Nearby longhouse
- Nearby cemetery
- 44 farmersSource: Nearby cemetery
- Heritage designation
- KulturdenkmalSource: Heritage designation
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 51°11′25″ N, 11°10′11″ EFor a GPS or map app: 51.19030, 11.16970
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.
Leubingen tumulus3500–500 BCE
Galgenhügel3500–500 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hallonge3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Palmberghügel3500–500 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Menhir von Trebra2800–1800 BCE
Weitester Hügel3500–500 BCE
Menhir of Buttelstedt2800–1800 BCE
Menhir of Feldengel2800–1800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q1483247wikidata.org
- 02Wikipedia (en)en.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Grabhuegel Leubingen.jpgReganiPublic domain
- Fürstengrab von Leubingen.jpgAschroetCC0
- Leubinger Fürstengrab, Bank.jpgDguendelCC BY 4.0
- Leubinger Fürstengrab, Blick nach Dermsdorf.jpgDguendelCC BY 4.0
- Leubinger Fürstengrab, Blick nach Leubingen.jpgDguendelCC BY 4.0
- Leubinger Fürstengrab, Blick nach Orlishausen und zum Ettersberg.jpgDguendelCC BY 4.0
- Leubinger Fürstengrab, Blick zum Autobahnparkplatz.jpgDguendelCC BY 4.0
- MUFT - Leubingen Fürstengrab 2 Nadeln.jpgWolfgang SauberCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Leubingen tumulus" (English), 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 (English): Leubingen tumulusCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q1483247CC0