As of: February 10, 2024, 5:24 a.m
By: Michaela Schubert
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Sketch shows: how two of the five skeletons that came to light during construction work on the church forecourt were bedded.
© Municipality of Dietramszell
Dietramszell - In the summer of 2022 there was a mysterious find in Dietramszell: skeletons.
Construction workers came across these during excavations during the redesign of the Dietramszell church forecourt.
Now there are new insights into solving the puzzle.
Five skeletons dug up on Dietramszell church forecourt
Until August 2022, five graves were hidden under 150-year-old lime trees in the center of Dietramszell on two levels one above the other.
During felling and construction work, they dug up five skeletons.
Neither the age nor gender of the dead were known to date.
From the bones you can see that the dead must have been three women and two men
Now there are new anthropological and archaeological research findings.
“There were three women and two men between the ages of 20 and 60 in the graves,” reports historian Michael Holzmann, who has a doctorate, in a community press release.
The dead all died of natural causes.
“Contrary assumptions can clearly be ruled out,” he explains.
According to experts, the buried people were all lying in a west-east direction and - as far as the skulls have been preserved (in three cases) - facing north in an outstretched supine position with their arms bent in the chest area.
The grave sites are probably a section of the former cemetery of the Dietramszell monastery and its church of the Assumption of Mary.
Dietramszell: Skeleton material is well preserved
“The skeletal material is largely complete and intact,” says the historian.
It is blatant that some of the skulls have “disorders” in the head area of the dead, which, however, can only be explained by the location below the rhizomes or by previous road construction work.
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Hooks and eyelets made of bronze and iron in the skeleton finds
No additions such as jewelry or costumes could be found.
However, there were one or more hooks and eyelets made of bronze and iron, mainly on the upper body of the buried.
As Holzmann explains, the so-called hafteln indicates a burial in a shroud or cloth made of linen.
A fragment of an iron nail was found in one grave, which would suggest that this grave was a coffin burial.
“It is known that until the late Middle Ages only rich or high-ranking people were buried in coffins made of stone or wood,” says historians.
As was known from the burial of Saint Lazarus, all the remaining dead were wrapped in linen cloths or sewn up until the end of the 16th century.
What period might the Dietramszell graves be from?
It is not yet possible to say exactly what period the Dietramszell graves are from.
Holzmann considers a classification in the late Middle Ages or early modern period (1300-1600) to be plausible.
The little church at Kreuzbichl was completed around 1500, where the new cemetery was also built.
According to these considerations, the graves would have to date from before 1500.
But only the results of a scientific age determination (using the C14 method) can provide greater certainty.