bavarikon4UThe Early-Mediaeval Cemetery at Zeuzleben, Community of Werneck, Schweinfurt District, Lower Franconia (approx. 6th-7th cent. AD)
Thuringia and Franconia - today these German landscapes are separated by a border that also forms the northern border of the Free State of Bavaria. Around the year 500, the kingdom of Thoringi extended far beyond the Thuringian Forest to the South, into the area of the Main triangle and into the area around Bamberg. Some early place names ending in "-leben" still bear witness to this history today, for example Zeuzleben southwest of Schweinfurt.
Between 1983 and 1985 an exceptional sixth-century cemetery was excavated there. Here, around 530/40, the largest early-medieval grave yard known in southern Germany was erected: a two-storey wooden grave house, 4.5 by 3 m and a good 4 m deep, in the basement of which a dead noblewoman was buried on a four-wheeled cart. Four graves for dog and 15 graves for horses also belonged to the cemetery. Extensive grave goods were discovered with the human burials of Zeuzleben: riding accessories, weapons, jewellery and especially numerous gifts of food and drink.
Some clay pots are considered typically Thuringian ware. These were shaped by hand, fired black-brown and decorated on the belly with oblique striae and grooves. While the oldest tombs contain these vessels – for which the best comparable pieces come from the region between the Thuringian Forest, the Harz Mountains and the Elbe - the next generation increasingly favoured goods from the West, where the new rulers on the river Main came from: the Franks.
>> These finds are part of the "Cemeteries and Burials from Bavaria" of the holdings of "Archaeological Findings" of the Archäologische Staatssammlung München (Archaeological State Collection of Munich).