Propylaeum

The custom of giving metalworking tools to a deceased person in the grave has been known since the Copper Age and is widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa. This volume attempts to trace this practice, taking into account the spiritual culture of the respective epoch. The picture of the archaeological legacy is completed by written and pictorial sources.
The work gives an overview from the Copper Age to the Middle Ages of all the graves in which forging tools were found. A few selected examples from the early Middle Ages are treated in more detail in individual studies.
In addition to the archaeological findings, epigraphic, iconographic, documentary and historical sources provide the basis for a new interpretation.

Volume 1, s. here.

The town of Ladenburg looks back on a rich historical heritage: In the Roman era, Lopodunum was the capital of an extensive municipality, the civitas Ulpia Sueborum Nicrensium, and from the Carolingian period onward, Lobedtenburc is documented as the center of the Lobdengau. For the period in between, written sources are largely missing; all the more important are archaeological features and finds. The most important of these are presented in the volume at hand and embedded in the historical context. For instance, a group of Postumus coins from Ladenburg are presented, new interpretations of the late Roman burgus and the medieval ‘bishop's court’ are discussed, and recent findings on a Carolingian cemetery in the city area are presented. The surroundings of Ladenburg are represented by overviews on the richly equipped early medieval cemeteries of the region and on recent settlement excavations. Critical re-evaluations of written sources as well as historical-archaeological syntheses on the various possible scenarios of the 'Fall of the Limes' and on comparative regions such as the Palatinate in Late Antiquity complete the volume.

Extensive excavations in Güglingen in the Zabergäu region led to the discovery of two Mithras temples in 1999 and 2002. The first one was built of stone and had been almost entirely deprived of its furnishings. The second, smaller Mithraeum, on the other hand, preserved large parts of the inventory under its collapsed tiled roof. In this timber-framed building, stone monuments, temple dishes, personal belongings of the worshipers, various votive offerings and liturgical equipment were preserved in a hitherto unique state.
The unique archaeological record not only enabled the reconstruction of the building history of both temples, but also for the first time allowed a deep insight into the previously unknown liturgical practice of the Mithras cult. For example, the finds and features suggest that scenes from the mithraic legend were re-enacted in the temples with the use of special lighting effects. The finds from Mithraeum II confirm the practical execution of initiations in the form of trials of courage or symbolic death experiences, which had been assumed for a long time from written sources. The timber-framed building from Güglingen is also the oldest evidence of the distinctive temple type “Mithraeum” from the time around 115/125 AD and thus lends new momentum to the question of the spread of this cult.

In 1989, the Westfälisches Museum für Archäologie conducted a study of a burial ground in Porta Westfalica-Costedt with 44 graves dating from the early Roman Imperial period. A few urn graves were discovered, but the most common forms of burial were cremation graves, cremation patch and bone nests. Such variants are common in the Rhine-Weser Germanic region.
A relatively large number of garment buckles in the form of 15 fibulas were found at the burial ground, ceramic is the most common category of archaeological finds. Several graves contained Roman import products; a Roman disc fibula, terra sigillata, along with remains of Roman bronze vessels and glasses have been identified. The existence of a local ruling class can be deduced from the burial gifts of Roman import. On viewing these objects together, it is evident that two courts shared the same burial ground, one of which was for three generations recognisably richer than the other.
The site was analysed as part of two exercises at the Seminar for Prehistory and Early History of the Georg-August-University Göttingen from 1992 to 1994.

This volume publishes the excavation report on a 10th to 13th century farmstead near Mönchengladbach-Wanlo in the administrative district of Düsseldorf. The excavation revealed a section of a typical of typical High Medieval rural settlement with loosely scattered structures in the form of ground-level post buildings and with one type of building set into the ground, accompanied by pits, two wells and a type of oven common in the Rhineland. The farmstead area, enclosed by ditches, was located on an old pathway east of the upper Niers, about halfway between the former knights' residences in Wanlo and Keyenberg to the south.
The site was discovered during the planned construction of the new L354n state road between Wanlo and Erkelenz-Kahlhausen in the course of the opencast mining at Garzweiler. RWE Power AG commissioned the company Archaeonet in Bonn to carry out the project in compliance with the measures of the monument protection authorities.

The starting point of the study is the detailed analysis of the treasure find from the Stadtweinhaus in Münster/Westphalia. With an ensemble of richly decorated jewellery, it is not only one of the largest late medieval treasure finds in Central Europe, but also a prime example for the entire source group due to its typical find and research history.
Through the comprehensive evaluation of the treasure find, the traditional interpretation as the hoard of a Jewish pawnbroker is questioned for the first time and expanded by alternative interpretations. The comparison with 324 treasure finds rounds off the study on the source value of these intentionally deposited collections of valuable objects.

Table appendix see here.

After the new presentation of the Kröllkogel, the other three princely tombs of the Separatnekropole of Kleinklein were also to be reworked.
The graves show a clear chronological sequence: At the beginning is Hartnermichelkogel 1, where the founder of the Separatnekropole was buried in the last decades of the 8th century BC. The clearly younger Pommerkogel is likely to date between 660/650 and 630/620 BC. What is remarkable is that the grave furnishings are largely identical, which testifies to a fixed set of rules according to which the highest elite had to be buried in small graves over a period of 150 years. The construction of the separate necropolis thus suggests a clearly elevated position of this group of people as well as a pronounced dynastic consciousness.

Notched belt fittings served as representative and symbolic late Roman military belts; they were specially designed in Gaul for elite troops of the field army, remained in modified form until the first third of the 5th century and can be found above all at military sites and along the imperial border. Due to troop movements and the mobility of army units, the "notched belts" spread to many regions of the Western Roman Empire. Veterans brought them back to their respective home towns. Thanks to their planned design and controlled change, notched belts provide information about the structure and effectiveness of the Late Antique army up to the middle of the 5th century.

The LWL-Archaeology for Westphalia carried out its largest excavation to date from 1999 to 2002 at the Kreskenhof in Dorsten-Holsterhausen. On 120,000 square meters, five Roman encampments as well as imperial and medieval settlement traces were investigated with several thousand finds and features.
Four of the five Roman camps were large enough to accommodate the soldiers of more than one legion. The first evidence of Roman occupation dates back to the time of the Drusus campaign. Among the finds, a purse filled with 36 silver denarii is particularly noteworthy, which contained the legionary pay of two months and dates back to the governor period of Varus in Germania.
Only half a century after the withdrawal of the Roman troops a small Germanic settlement developed in Holsterhausen with pit houses, granarys as well as larger post-built house. The pit houses were moved on after some decades, which is unique so far ­– as well as the large-scale distribution of the buildings within the Germanic settlement.

It is not only in Westphalia that the scientific study of rural building remains from the Middle Ages is a desideratum of archaeological and building history research. Almost all of the buildings are made of wood, which is now decayed and therefore much more difficult to examine than the surviving monumental witnesses of medieval architecture made of stone.
Angelika Speckmann has now closed this gap and, for her up-to-date and detailed evaluation, has compiled over 300 ground plan findings from the 6th to the 13th century. She prepared them in a uniform manner, analysed them and thus made them comparable and usable for a quick overview.
A glossary with a definition of all technical terms used makes the volume a helpful reference work. Excursuses on the craftsmen who built the houses, on reconstructions and on the durability of the various buildings complete the publication.
This thesis was accepted as a dissertation at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster in 2007.

In the recent past, the question of the origin of historical collection holdings has gained relevance. This book is dedicated to the trade in antiquities at the beginning of the 20th century, using the archaeological collection of the Winckelmann Institute of the Humboldt University in Berlin as an example. The focus is on the questions: Which actors were involved? Where did they buy the antiquities? How were trade and export from the countries around the Mediterranean possible? At the same time, the art market of the time, the travel conditions, the careers of the archaeologists involved, and the antiquities laws are analyzed, so that a complex picture of the antiquities trade of this era emerges.
The volume with a contribution by Fabian Sliwka is published in the series Schriften des Winckelmann-Instituts der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Every depiction of Perseus or Medusa in post-antique Europe is just as remarkable as the origin and development of this myth in ancient Greece and Rome. Pictures, reliefs and sculptures inspired by ancient myths are now incomprehensible to most people. From the once-rich artistic language, only a few phrases survive in general consciousness; what is more, these phrases have lost meaning through constant repetition. This book aims to speak the fearless Perseus, the terrifying Medusa, the selfless Danae, the beautiful Andromeda, and the mysterious Pegasus again. It analyses the evolution of grammar and vocabulary of these depictions from Greek antiquity to the present. The oldest depictions date to the second millennium BC, the youngest ones from the present time; they originated not only in Europe but also from the Near East and Northern America. Why the depictions of Perseus' myth? From the beginning, this myth was connected with the vision and imagery on which today's culture is built.

The publication Death in Baja presents for the first time a comprehensive account of the grave findings from the 9,000-year-old settlement of Baja in southern Jordan. It is the second volume of the final publication of the DFG Household and Death project. The unexpectedly lavishly decorated children graves shed new light on the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic period of the southern Levant. An empirical synthesis and archaeothanatological interpretation are provided before presenting the grave findings in detail, as well as eleven additional archaeological, analytical, and bioanthropological analyses and three contributions on the restoration of a unique necklace and on the reconstruction of the grave from which it came.

In this publication, the contributions appear successively. They are edited, have the final layout and are included unchanged in the full volume. Each early-view article receives a persistent DOI and is thus fully citable; only no pages can be given yet. Only when all articles are available will they be given page numbers. Please use the citation recommendation given in the PDF for the Early View.

With the rediscovery of ancient cultures, the desire for permanence of their material heritage became established, and thus the restoration of cultural objects. To understand their history provides an access to the technical possibilities and the practical procedures of the early restorers as well as to the aesthetic to archaeological ideas of the art dealers, collectors and custators in museums.
An important field of activities was offered by the ancient bronzes.
The collection of the Berlin Antikensammlung is one of the most important outside the Mediterranean area. This collection writes a history of restoration of almost 500 years, which becomes illustrative in its essential facets with the support of finds from other museums.

Volume 1, see here.

With the rediscovery of ancient cultures, the desire for permanence of their material heritage became established, and thus the restoration of cultural objects. To understand their history provides an access to the technical possibilities and the practical procedures of the early restorers as well as to the aesthetic to archaeological ideas of the art dealers, collectors and custators in museums.
An important field of activities was offered by the ancient bronzes.
The collection of the Berlin Antikensammlung is one of the most important outside the Mediterranean area. This collection writes a history of restoration of almost 500 years, which becomes illustrative in its essential facets with the support of finds from other museums.

Volume 2, see hier.

In the present volume, several authors present new finds from the Roman encampments of Haltern, Oberaden and Anreppen on the right bank of the Rhine in seven contributions. The first three contributions by K. Roth-Rubi, B. Rudnick and G. Schneider deal with the stamped Terra Sigillata found in Haltern and Oberaden over the past few decades and clearly document the places of origin of the ceramic with detailed diagrams and tables. C. Ellinghaus deals with the imagery of Roman legionaries and use the finds to shed light on the social history of Roman soldiers. With the glass vessels and glass beads from the three Lippe encampments, B. Tremmel presents one of the most important glass complexes of the early roman imperial period. M. Müller concludes with a helmet find and gives in a further contribution an overview of the range of forms of Roman bronze vessels from Oberaden based on two new finds.

The anthology focuses on current issues where archaeology and jurisdiction intersect, particularly in dealing with archaeological heritage (e.g. scope and limits of private research, financing of archaeological rescue excavations, the circulation of archaeological finds, forms of administrative action in the preservation of archaeological monuments).
In addition to essays concentrating on the legal situation in Germany, several essays deal with the legal situation in other European countries. The aim is to enable readers to identify similarities and differences in the resolution of typical conflicts of interest in the field of archaeological heritage conservation in Europe.

The study is dedicated to the question of the emergence and development of the colonate. For this purpose, structural framework conditions and contingent factors are examined for the first time, which brought about the colonate by means of legislation, such as the political-legislative framework, internal and external wars as well as changes in climatic conditions. The colon laws of Late Antiquity are, according to the view put forward here, not the result of a progressive development that led to the colonate, but the beginning of a process in the course of which the colonate emerged. With the reign of Constantine, the Great, according to the thesis, the fateful development of their personal law status began for the colonates.

Despite its peripheral location, the Mare Thracium was an integral part of the Mediterranean world. The wealth of its resources and the rivers connecting to the Thracian hinterland were of great importance. Numerous harbour cities contributed significantly to the development of the region from the Archaic to the Byzantine period and even beyond.
The contributions in this volume originated from a workshop held in Mainz in 2016 as part of the DFG Priority Programme (SPP 1630)  »Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages«. They deal with the natural conditions for seafaring, historical developments, the physical remains of coastal settlements and their harbours, and underwater finds.

This work presents part of the results of an excavation carried out from 1991 to 1995 at the Oespeler Bach in the west of the city of Dortmund. The archaeological investigations yielded surprisingly diverse results. Apart from the prehistoric burial ground expected at this site, Neolithic, Middle Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age settlement features were found here. In the present volume, the Late Bronze Age cemetery was analysed.
A total of 269 burials and 69 ditches were documented – exclusively cremation burials in urns or organic containers, of which about a quarter was integrated into a ditch. Keyhole-shaped grave ditches occur most frequently and are the southernmost representatives of their type. Investigations of the cremations and the remains of the pyre complete the picture of the burial ground, which was used in two phases (Ha A to Ha B2/3).

30 years of excavations by the Hessian State Archaeology Department uncovered a considerable amount of pre- and early historic settlements in Marburg's Lahn Valley. This has fundamentally changed the former image of an inaccessible floodplain unsuitable for permanent settlement. This study provides a geoarchaeological perspective on our understanding of local settlement processes as well as archaeobotanical insights into developments in agriculture and of the environment between the Early Neolithic and the Middle Ages. The case study shows that the floodplains of low mountain rivers were no purely natural landscapes, but conceal cultural landscapes reaching far back into prehistoric times and therefore worthy of protection.

This anthology " Schöne Denkmäler sind entstanden" brings together studies in honor of Ursula Verhoeven. The diverse contributions by Egyptological colleagues and former students reflect the thematic and methodological breadth of the Egyptologist's research interests. These include Egyptian scribal culture, especially cursive scripts, their development and interdependencies with monumental hieroglyphs, as well as their (digital) paleographic analysis, Egyptian papyri, graffiti, and dipinti, literary and funerary texts, funerary culture, religion, the world of the gods, cultural history, and many more.

The Mayen ware produced in Mayen is considered characteristic and relevant to dating. These ceramic products were formative for parts of the ancient European economic structure. The Mayen potteries were part of the pre-modern industrial area between the Eastern Eifel and the Rhine. Here, a seamless transfer of knowledge and technology from the Roman era to the early Middle Ages took place throughout the 5th century. The study goes beyond the typochronological assessment of the vessel pottery. It also addresses aspects of the individual lives of the potters in their multi-layered lifeworlds, such as their beliefs, their dependencies on property or the monetary economy.

Economic aspects permeate all areas of public and private life in ancient societies, whether in urban development, religion, art, housing, or in death. Research on ancient economies has long played a significant role in ancient history. Increasingly in the last decades, awareness has grown in archaeology that the material culture of ancient societies offers excellent opportunities for studying the structure, performance, and dynamics of ancient economic systems and economic processes. Therefore, the main objective of this congress was to understand economy as a central element of classical societies and to analyse its interaction with ecological, political, social, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The theme of the congress was addressed to all disciplines that deal with Greco-Roman civilization and their neighbouring cultures from the Aegean Bronze Age to the end of Late Antiquity.
In this collective volume, single contributions from sessions 11 and 12 deal with digital topics such as computational approaches and 3D documentation in archaeology and building research. On the other hand, the studies include topics on ancient sculptures and sanctuaries as well as the rituals associated with them.
Furthermore, the numerous transcribed posters which have been presented and discussed during the congress week in the context of a poster session are published in this volume.

Deserted sites – rural settlements abandoned in the Middle Ages – are an important but often neglected factor in the development of today's cultural landscape. The research of the author Rudolf Bergmann, which is supported by the European funding program LEADER, is dedicated to these deserted sites. For the first time all references to the abandoned places of the Middle Ages in the area of the modern Hochsauerland and Ostsauerland around the six towns of Brilon, Hallenberg, Medebach, Marsberg, Olsberg and Winterberg are brought together in one volume.
The main part of the work is a catalog of almost 400 pages. There, for each former settlement, historical evidence, cartographic information, geographic features and archaeological finds are reproduced in detail.
The data impressively prove that the Hochsauerland was already largely developed by settlers in the early Middle Ages and it was not until the beginning of the early modern period that a massive depopulation took place due to a variety of factors.