Scandinavian bronze statuette is a 2,700-year-old gone
Two years ago, a 51-year-old truck driver found something spectacular when he snorkeled in the German river Tollense east of Rostock.
When Ronald Borgwardt fiddled in the square along the river bank, he found a 15 centimeter high bronze figure with an egg-shaped head, breasts and arms bent in a kind of jar-handle shape. The figure also has a necklace and belt.
The bronze figure is dated to be made 700 years before our era.
The small statuette is the second of its kind found in Germany. Near the Baltic Sea, as many as 12 similar discoveries have been made. The first was discovered around 1840.
All the findings are similar in shape and form, writes New York Times.
Startling finds, according to a Norwegian archaeologist
– This is a startling discovery, writes Anne Lene Melheim to forskning.no. She is a Bronze Age researcher at the University of Oslo.
Tollense is located in the Baltic Sea area in northeastern Germany, not far from Rostock which is just a ferry ride away from Denmark.
Although Tollensedalen today belongs to Germany, the area and was part of the Nordic Bronze Age culture.
– There was close contact between groups on both sides of the Baltic Sea and across the Kattegat and Skagerrak throughout the Bronze Age, she explains.
Mystery
Most of the 13 small figures have been found on Zealand in Denmark and Scania in Sweden.
The statuette in Tollense is so far the largest and heaviest, and weighed 155 grams.
The figure is found in a river bed, in a place where it has been a crossing point.
This is an archaeological mystery, says archaeologist Thomas Terberger at Göttingen State and University Library.
What was the figure used for and how did it end up there?
Terberger launches a couple of possible explanations in a scientific article in Praehistorische Zeitschrift.
Part of weight system or religious symbol?
The statuette is either part of a weight system for weighing merchandise, or a religious object worshiped, the researchers believe.
The figure may have been a kind of symbol of a goddess.
It may also have been used for both.
But the design does not fit with any deities who are known to have been extensively worshiped at this time.
Another researcher believes the figure may have been used as a fertility symbol for young, newlywed women to ensure they had children.
Southern Norway was influenced by rituals from there
– Finds from southern Norway from the Late Bronze Age that this figure is from, show strong effects from this part of the continent when it comes to funeral rituals, she says.
It is therefore not surprising in itself that objects appear here that resemble finds from today’s Scandinavia.
– The finding is nevertheless sensational, because it provides a framework for how we should understand these small figures, Melheim believes.
Leave weights in the grave until dead
It was common to place small bronze weights and barbells that have since died in graves, both in France and in southern Germany.
This is what co-author of studies, Professor Lorentz Rahmstorf at the University of Gröttingen Ramstorf tells us New York Times.
But researchers have not yet found evidence of when weight equipment will be introduced in northern Germany and Scandinavia.
Until now, researchers have believed that the economy of Northern Europe in the Bronze Age was based on gift exchange or trade.
Found a possible measuring system
The theory that the bronze figures are part of an early Scandinavian weight system was introduced by the Swedish archaeologist Mats Malmer in 1992.
He believed that these small figures, often with female characteristics, were a kind of scales, which were used in trade and metal production.
By weighing all 12 figures that had been found until then, he found a mutually proportional system in the possible units of weight.
It was expressed by taking the weight in grams and dividing by 26 which mentions in a fraction.
– This unit of weight is known from Scandinavia, but also appears in other parts of Europe in the Bronze Age, and is believed to have its origins in Egypt, Anne Lene Melheim explains to forskning.no.
Not all the figures fit perfectly into the schedule, but most were quite close.
Possible to trade across cultures
To date, stone slabs with horizontal grooves are known as possible units of weight from the Bronze Age of northern Germany and southern Scandinavia from this time.
– Personally, I have no doubt that the small statuette represents a unit of weight that made it possible to handle metals and the like across cultures, Melheim writes to forskning.no.
The second theory that they are goddess statues may also be true.
– One does not have to exclude the other, Melheim explains.
A big blow in the area
The location of the site is very interesting, Melheim believes.
Over 20 years ago, my husband’s father found skeletal parts in the mud in the same river.
Part was a human arm impaled by a flint arrowhead.
So far, remains have been found after about 750 deaths. Several thousand warriors may have taken part in the battle, at least 2,000 have researchers estimated, Melheim says.
I add that it has taken place after horses and some military effects.
All the parts have been dated to about 1,250 BC. Presumably, they were all victims of a battle played out in one day.
Quite a few of the individuals have traces of played injuries. This suggests that they have been experienced warriors.
Tollense is the largest battlefield we know from the Bronze Age. It is considered Europe’s oldest battlefield. There have been excavations of the battle site since 2007.
The northerners may have rowed to the Mediterranean by canoe
It is believed that the battle took place at an important crossing point in the landscape, where traders have passed on their way between north and south.
Oder was one of the rivers the Norsemen used to deal with metal and other goods.
This place was part of an ancient trade route between the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. It was a shortcut built of wood and stone, which was used to transport amber, researchers discovered in 2013.
– The northerners were knowledgeable sailors, and we assume that they traveled all the way to the Mediterranean with their plank-built canoes, says Melheim.
Memorial?
The unanswered question is now why a figure appeared in a river along a trade route hundreds of years after a major battle took place there, Terberger believes.
Was it accidental, or was this a memorial service for the dead after the battle?
Could the story of the battle have been passed down orally to new generations?
The figure is found in a river bed, in a place where it has been a crossing point.
– It is not unusual that sacrifices of metals and other valuables have been provided in such places, and it is just as an offer on this figure should be understood, says Bronze Age researcher Anne Lene Melheim at UiO.
Reference:
T. Terberger mf: Worship or weight? A ‘goddess with a necklace’ from the Bronze Age from the river Tollense (NE Germany). Prehistoric Magazine, February 12, 2022.