Hallstatt “water goddess” joins Munich state collection

A mysterious prehistoric statuette from the Hallstatt culture discovered in 2022 during highway construction in Mönchstockheim, Lower Franconia, will go on permanent display at the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich. The Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (BLfD) has completed conservation of the figure and it will be officially handed over on January 30th. The statuette is 7.5 inches high today, but is missing part of its legs and is estimated to have been about four inches longer when it was intact. The front of the upper body is also missing, so any chest bumps that may have conveyed the figure’s gender are no longer present. The head is intact with detailed modeling of facial features and a circular border perforated with holes on each side of the face. Archaeologists hypothesize that the perforated, curved sides represent a hood decorated with metal rings or pins, a type of headgear worn by Hallstatt women. The statuette was referred to as a water goddess because of the find site: a prehistoric channel believed to have been used by the people of the nearby Hallstatt settlement to collect water. Pottery shards, tools and an unusual clay stamp were also found in the channel, and neither they nor the statuette have the rounded edges characteristic of water erosion. That suggests they were not washed downstream, but were rather deliberately placed in the channel, indicating they had cultic significance connected to water. The vessel fragments were dated to between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C., the early Hallstatt period, but the statuette could not be so clearly dated. This type of figurine is very rare in Lower Franconia. Similar designs have been found in the western Black Sea region but they are much older, dating to the Neolithic period, and don’t have the headdress which links it to the Hallstatt period.

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