Merovingian “Lady of Kölleda” burial chamber presented to the public

The exceptional 6th century burial chamber of a woman discovered near the Thuringian town of Kölleda will be presented to the public on November 9th still partially encased in its massive soil block.

The grave was discovered during an archaeological excavation of a 20-hectare site slated for construction. Between 2017 and 2021, the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology (TLDA) unearthed more than 3,700 archaeological objects from 4,000 years of settlement of the area. Of particular note were 17 graves dating to the 6th and 7th centuries, a transition period when the Thuringian Kingdom, which collapsed in 531, became part of the Merovingian Frankish Empire.

The excavation also uncovered a settlement from the same period just 330 feet south of the burial ground. The remains of about 70 homes were unearthed. It is one of very few Merovingian villages discovered in central Germany, and the only one to be archaeologically excavated in its entirety with an associated burial ground.

The burial ground was unusual in several ways. Eleven decapitated horses were buried in seven pits next to the human dead. The graves were also atypical: dug exceptionally deep and containing well-crafted wooden burial chambers with grave goods including weapons, jewelry, glass vessels from the Rhine-Main area and bronze vessels of eastern Mediterranean manufacture. The bronze vessels are rare, and have only been found in Frankish territory in the graves of the nobility.

One of the burials stood out from the other 16 because it was buried 13 feet beneath the surface of the soil and had a second chamber built above it with large field stones along the edge. The presence of the second chamber prevented the burial beneath it from being looted. The depth of the burial and the second chamber also kept this highly significant grave from being destroyed when a bomb detonated over it during World War II.

The entire burial chamber and surrounding earth were removed for excavation in the workshops of the TLDA. The total block removed weighed 13 tons and was 15 feet deep. It had to be encased in steel for transportation. It has been in the TLDA conservation laboratory since March of 2022, but excavation was delayed until late 2023 when specialized equipment and a new facility made it possible to handle so large a block.

Various scanning methods for 3D documentation of the individual excavation phases ensured the best possible recording of the exact position of the objects in the grave pit. The skeletal material and other particularly fragile objects were already consolidated with impregnating agents during the excavation. In the next step, the grave goods complexes were removed in smaller blocks and examined using computer tomography and other analysis methods. In this way, for example, very small objects (such as pearl necklaces) could already be identified and specifically exposed by the restorers.

The grave examined belonged to a woman aged around 25-30 years. The deceased had been buried with various food offerings and personal items. In particular, numerous gold and silver jewelry items as well as a chased bronze basin underline the outstanding social status of the deceased. The objects, of outstanding artistic quality, reveal far-reaching cultural relationships of members of this upper class as far as central Italy and the Mediterranean region.

The public is invited to view the Lady of Kölleda grave at the TLDA restoration workshop in Weimar on Saturday. Archaeologists will explain the complex excavation and their findings thus far.

* This article was originally published here