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A richly furnished grave, believed to belong to a member of the local Iron Age elite, has been found in Bad Camberg, Germany.
The burial was revealed during excavations in the Hesse region in advance of the construction of a solar park. No surviving human remains have been found, but other objects in the grave offer clues to the identity of the deceased: an elite warrior who lived c.2,400 years ago.
The funerary goods include several pieces of simple but substantial gold jewellery, as well as fragments of weapons such as a spearhead and a knife, and an Etruscan beaked jug probably imported from present-day Tuscany. Most exciting, though, was the discovery that this is a rare example of a chariot burial. The grave contained evidence of a two-wheeled wagon, with finds comprising two wheel-hub fittings, axle-cap fittings, and iron wheel rim fittings. Only a handful of Iron Age chariot burials are known in Hesse, and none of such high quality as this.
Although excavations at the site have now concluded, X-ray and chlorhexidine images of extracted blocks of earth from the burial show that there are still more objects to be uncovered. Already, however, the grave goods revealed have prompted comparisons with other princely graves in central Europe, such as the ‘Celtic Prince of Glauberg’, which was found in the same region and also dates to the early La Tène period. Although the objects from Bad Camberg are less ornate than those in the Glauberg burial, both of these graves clearly reflect the presence of a ruling class of wealthy elites in this region, and demonstrate the importance of Hesse in the Celtic cultural sphere.
The State Secretary for Culture, Christoph Degen, commented that the recent discovery from Bad Camberg ‘promises new insights into social elites, craft skills, supraregional contacts, and burial customs in the Late Iron Age’, and will expand our picture of Hesse’s rich heritage in this period.
Text: Amy Brunskill / Image: © Lars Görze M.A., LfDH
