Doctoral thesis on the secrets of the Emmeringer graves

Created: 06/16/2022, 10:00 am

By: Ulrike Osman

At the presentation of the doctoral thesis (from left): Bernd Päffgen (Society for Archaeology), Ulrike Bergheim (Historical Association Fürstenfeldbruck), Tobias Albrecht and Walter Irlinger (State Office for the Preservation of Monuments).

© Peter Weber

A huge cupboard full of boxes: Tobias Albrecht faced an unbelievable mountain of work when he began to deal with the finds from the Emmeringer burial ground.

Two and a half years later, the archaeologist has completed his doctoral thesis on the finds - and in doing so has identified some special features.

Emmering

– With 573 graves and well over 600 buried people, the burial ground is one of the largest in southern Germany.

For almost 300 years - from the middle of the 5th century until at least 725 - the Ur-Emmeringer buried their dead here.

An extraordinarily long period of time, as Albrecht says.

"The burial ground was used for almost 100 years longer than others."

Emmering – a place for the wealthy

The grave goods examined by the 31-year-old from Dachau make it clear that a number of higher-ranking people must have lived in Emmering throughout.

In addition to the knives and combs customary for the time, there were unusual pieces, including one-offs and custom-made items.

A cross fibula decorated with almadine – a kind of garnet – comes from one of the women's graves.

This is a brooch or clasp used to hold clothing together.

The material was certainly imported, according to Albrecht.

The wearer must therefore have belonged to a wealthy family.

Pearls were found most frequently in the women's graves.

In one case, the scientist came across a belt hanger with a decorative disc depicting a human being with two animals.

"This type of object is unique so far."

Grave goods provide information about what activities a person performed during their lifetime.

Men were buried with tools or weapons, sometimes even with their horses.

According to Albrecht, various verifiable injuries to the bones of the dead reveal "that the weapons were not only intended to indicate social status, but were also actively used".

In one of the men's graves the tip and handle of a spoon drill were found.

The scientist has thus succeeded in providing extremely rare evidence that woodworking was already practiced in Emmering in the early Middle Ages.

However, grave goods also show whether a family was wealthy or rather poor – in other words, which of their belongings they could do without.

"What you put in the grave with the dead was gone," says Albrecht.

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Food as grave goods

In some cases, he was even able to use animal bones and the lime from egg shells to prove that food had been added to the graves.

There are two explanations for this practice, according to the archaeologist.

Either one wanted to enable the deceased to take part in the funeral feast or the food was intended to serve as food for the journey to the afterlife.

The fact that grave goods were found at all proves that the Christian faith had not yet fully established itself at this time.

Only with increasing Christianization did it become unusual to bury the dead with food or objects from their lives.

Nevertheless, the graves also show parallels to today.

There were already precursors of family graves as well as subsequent burials - in other words, one and the same resting place was occupied several times.

The fact that the rich furnishings of the Emmeringer graves with more than 1500 finds were brought to light is largely due to the Historical Association of Fürstenfeldbruck (HVF).

Half of the six excavation campaigns between 1990 and 2003 were carried out by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the other half by the HVF.

The joy there is all the greater that the evaluation is now available in the form of Albrecht's doctoral thesis - and that the most beautiful pieces can be seen in the archaeological department of the Brucker Museum.

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