From: tgpedersen
Message: 64398
Date: 2009-07-22
>Sorry, I've overlooked it somehow a couple of days.
>
> Torsten,
> I have commented on some pertinent selected texts from your translation below at ****GK
>It seems everything here hinges on Eggers' conclusions, so I asked the library to find the article for me.
> --- On Sat, 7/18/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Here is the translation. Original text at
> http://tech. groups.yahoo. com/group/ cybalist/ message/64377
>
> Jan Lichardus
> Inhumation funerals of the early Imperial period in the area of the
> southern Elbe Germani
> (Körpergräber der frühen Kaiserzeit im Gebiet der südlichen
> Elbgermanen)
> pp. 59-69
>
> D. INTERPRETATION
>
> .... Already in the 50's H. J. Eggers successfully proved that
> the inhumation burials contained purely Germanic types of finds and
> that those there interred must be native Germani 3). Since Eggers
> however was then primarily concerned with graves of the
> Lubiesowo/Lübsow type, he didn't search for the beginning of the
> inhumation custom as such in some given Germanic area; but drew
> from the set of funerary accoutrement of this particular burial
> category a conclusion of Roman influence. Since Eggers'
> investigations it is undisputed, that the appearance of the
> inhumation custom cannot be explained with foreign ethnoi, but that
> native conditions of a social or religious nature are reflected
> here, essentially to be attributed
> to external impulses./...
> In this text we could establish that the first inhumation burialsIt seems Lichardus, who was Czech, was concerned most of all with what happened v C^echách, in the Czech lands. Hence the choice of subject, Southern Elbe Germani, and hence his cavalier attitude towards the evidence of other Przeworsk inhumation funerals than those he defines away as imitations of a half-forgotten Celtic custom.
> in North-west Bohemia and in Central Germany appear in Phase 2. /...
>
> inhumation burials which, apart from the unique and different
> treatment of the corpse, express the same elements of the funerary
> ritual 5).(as do the cremation burials [****GK/....
>
>
>
> in Central Germany there exist some East Germanic inhumation
> funerals which are older than the earliest Elbe Germanic finds 8).
> Chronologically these burials belong to the middle section of the
> later pre-Roman Iron Age, corresponding approx to the stage Latène
> D1 in the area of Southern Germany. A conspicuous concentration of
> such inhumation funerals is found above all in Poland, in Silesia
> and Kuyavia, in the area of the Przeworsk Culture; inhumation
> funerals have been demonstrated here sporadically also in the early
> Imperial Period 9). In constrast to the Elbe Germanic inhumation
> burials the deceased here are often interred lying on the side with
> legs flexed [NB ****GK]
> or in crouched position. Their funeral accoutrement consists ofAnd here Lichardus just multiplies the problem: why suddenly several styles of inhumation in an otherwise cremating culture? Several varieties of a afterlife-promising new religion?
> apparel items, knives, awls, various fittings and only rarely of
> weapons. The grave fields are often bi-ritual; burials in
> segregated locations are found less frequently 10). In its total
> habitus these inhumation burials are so different from the Elbe
> Germanic ones, that a take-over from this area seems unlikely.
> Also, these inhumation funerals show neither chronological nor
> cultural connections to the Lubiesowo/Lübsow graves also shown to
> be here 11), which for their own part have likely come about under
> influence from the Elbe Germanic area, and no argument whatsoever
> speaks for a derivation of the Elbe Germanic inhumation burials
> from this area.
> *****GK: The Wikipedia Polish-language article on Przeworsk statesBut at that time the Celts practised cremation, as mentioned.
> that this type of burial [flexed ****GK]covers an area "identical
> to that of earlier Celtic settlements".
> So the idea is that northeastern Celtic groups assimilating intoMuch earlier.
> Przeworsk kept up aspects of their earlier funeral rites.
> Note however that this 'sidelying/flexed/' position differs fromI didn't get that? The early Wielbark or the Wielbark appeariing earlier (1st cent. CE) than the Przeworsk inhumation graves (I thought they were earlier than that) or the Wielbark overlaid by Przeworsk (that doesn't make sense)?
> the inhumation rite of the earlier Wielbark culture
> (straightforward 'on the back' position).
> Where did the impulse forNo matter what line of reasoning might explain them as derived from the Marcomanni, there remain the very early inhumation graves of Central Germany, which must have to do with Ariovistus' campaign down the Wetterau valley.
> that come? The Marcomanni? [Note that that Gutones were subjects of
> Marbod and participated in the assault of 19 AD which eliminated
> his rulership].
> On the other hand, as Wielbark spread into UkraineDoes the flexed/sidelying pose type of inhumation have any relatives elsewhere?
> and transmogrified into Chernyakhiv (beg. in the 4th decade of the
> 3rd c. D) it recorded a very significant number of burials of the
> Przeworsk inhumation type as described above ('flexed/sidelying')
> [acc. to Boris Mahomedov's magisterial 2001 study of the
> Chernyakhiv culture some 10%
> (!!) of the Chernyakhiv inhumation burials were of this type. He
> distinguishes them from the rare Wielbark/Germanic Chernyakhiv
> borrowings of "Sarmatian poses" (legs crossed; hands on hips).*****
>