Ein kurzer Diskussionsbeitrag zur Bedeutung der Prunkgräber und ihrer Ausstattungen

Anmerkungen anhand der Befunde aus Zakrzów, Stráže, Cejkov und Ostrovany

Abstract

Extensive assemblages of grave goods and burials in large burial chambers characterized the princely graves of the later Roman Iron Age in the Barbaricum. In a final ceremonial commemoration of their public role for the burial community, the dead were laid out on view in the burial chamber, along with their gifts. The grave goods were representative of the public acts in which they were used. Those present knew that although these were intended to describe the person to be buried, the functions they symbolised had passed to the successor.
This contribution discusses the spheres considered important enough to be recalled for one last time by objects. The objects offer clues about elements and structures of power in the societies concerned. One should be aware, however, that areas of life which are neatly compartmentalised by archaeologists (e.g. “rulership”, “religion”, “cultural contacts”) were, in fact, closely interwoven in “real life”. The objects through which actions can be reconstructed therefore had several layers of meaning. The construction of a shared history, in which one’s own family was closely involved, was very important – not only for the legitimation of rule, but also for the creation of an ideological superstructure. Residual finds in the princely burials served to commemorate particular successful actions by the group that already lay in the “mythological” past. In oral societies, such “objects of memory” and, above all, the power of disposal over them were of enormous importance. Figurative representations can also be seen in this context. They did not represent everyday content, but belonged to the religious or mythological sphere. They were “key images” or symbols that “triggered” certain ideas in the viewer, like the cross in the Christian world. The motifs were certainly also identity-creating. It would seem that a monopoly on the use of these images lay in the hands of the leading group. By displaying these symbols, the group demonstrated its affinity with the religious or mythological content they represented. This would imply that the control of ritual was another important instrument of rule (“sacral
leadership”), although the archaeological evidence on this question is not clear-cut. In some cases, one has the impression that the dead were buried in vestments of some kind, worn for the exercise of secular (and cultic?) leadership. Of great importance was the representation of military successes, which were demonstrated in the princely graves not by weapons, but rather by massive arm and neck rings.