Fritzlar-Züschen Gallery Grave — Schwalm-Eder
Steinkammergrab Züschen · Lohne-Züschen gallery · Wartberg Züschen
Late Neolithic (Wartberg 3400–2900 BCE)·Wartberg·🇩🇪 Hesse, Schwalm-Eder, Fritzlar-Züschen, Lohne–Züschen road, Garvensburg field, Germany
About
About Fritzlar-Züschen Gallery Grave — Schwalm-Eder
The Züschen gallery grave (c.3400–3000 BCE, Wartberg), just east of Fritzlar near the Eder, is a 20.5-m masterpiece, Germany's longest gallery tomb, with 30 sandstone orthostats enclosing a chamber subdivided by pierced slabs and famous incised Wartberg carvings: cattle teams, ploughs and yokes pecked onto an entrance slab. Excavated 1894 by W. R. Böhne and restudied 1939, it held ~50 collective burials with megalithic art unique in Hesse. Roofed and reconstructed beside its original mound, it is the type for Wartberg gallery art and Neolithic traction symbolism.
Why it mattersLongest Wartberg gallery; only German Neolithic incised megalithic art with ard teams.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Carved ploughs — symbolic traction or actual ard use?
Theories
- 01Iconography legitimises earliest ox-plough agriculture in loess Hesse
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.3350 BCE
- Period
- Late Neolithic (Wartberg 3400–2900 BCE)
- Culture
- Wartberg
- Purpose
- Elaborate collective gallery with incised plough-team iconography
- Excavation
- Excavated
c.3350 BCE
20.5-m gallery quarried and erected with incised entrance
c.3000–2900 BCE
Collective use to ~50 individuals; carvings possibly added phase
1894
Böhne excavates; art recognized
1939; 1994
U. Fischer restudies; roof erected and signage
On the ground
Structures & features
51.1620° N · 9.2350° E · 220 m · 2 mapped features
Züschen Carved Entrance Slab
rock art1.8-m sandstone slab incised with 8 panels of paired oxen, yokes and ploughs in pecked Wartberg art
51.1625° N · 9.2355° EZüschen Partition Portholes
partitionTwo interior pierced slabs dividing 20.5-m chamber into three compartments for successive burials
51.1618° N · 9.2345° E
Gallery