Neues zum Mainzer Goldschatz des 11. Jahrhunderts (Teil 2)

Abstract

From the hoard of 25 precious, gold jewels of the 11^th to early 12^th century, which was discovered by canalisation workers in 1880 in the city centre of Mainz, only the large, open-worked eagle disc-fibula (»the Gisela fibula«) was published at the time. Only now do we realise that the Mainz goldsmith J. Kirstein bought not only this piece, but all pieces of jewellery, but kept the size of the hoard and its findspot a secret until 1912. Accordingly, the jewels were not kept in the small safe of a middle-class property, but in a large, accessible treasury beneath the stone cellar of a tower-like building with almost 1 m thick walls dating to the 11^th / 12^th century and which can only have been erected by nobility.
This edifice stood on a privileged area above the high-water mark inside the city amidst a surprising concentration of the most precious, partly unique archaeological finds unparalleled in Central and Western Europe. Since a fragment of a royal throne from the late 8^th century belongs to these, this assemblage of finds is no insignificant accident but can be interpreted historically. It points to the location of Mainz’s royal palace, the existence of which is only attested by written sources of the 11^th / 12^th century.