Treasures that are unlikely to have accidentally fallen into the water: astonishingly rich finds in the base of a former well in Bavaria suggest that it served ritual purposes around 3000 years ago. Similar to how coins are still thrown into so-called wishing wells today, people could have sunk jewelry and ceramics as offerings in the special water spring, say the archaeologists.
The area of today's town of Germering in Upper Bavaria was a settlement area early on. Numerous finds from prehistory and early history bear witness to this. Many new ones have been added since the beginning of 2021: In the run-up to construction work, numerous traces of settlements from the Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages were discovered on an excavation area of around seven hectares. This also includes the remains of wells that were used by people of different eras to supply water. But one of the wells discovered on the site differed significantly from the others, reports the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BlfD).
This wooden water point is dated to be more than 3000 years old and, at around five meters, reached particularly deep into the ground compared to others. The most unusual, however, were the objects that the team of archaeologists discovered in what was once the base of the fountain: 26 bronze clothing pins, a bracelet, two metal spirals, a mounted animal tooth, amber beads and more than 70 ceramic vessels. The archaeologists emphasize that this filling makes this well fundamentally different from the others on the excavation site. According to them, it is also striking that the ceramics were not simple everyday tableware. Such finely crafted, decorated bowls, cups and pots were often given to the dead as grave goods by people in the Middle Bronze Age.
A fountain with cult status?
As the experts explain, the quantity and high quality of the objects suggest that they did not accidentally fall into the well, but were placed there on purpose - presumably as part of rituals. “Even today, fountains have something magical about them for many people. They drop coins in the hope that their wishes will be granted. We cannot exactly explain what motives our ancestors 3000 years ago made to offer jewelry and other valuable gifts. But it can be assumed that they were intended as sacrifices for a good harvest," explains Mathias Pfeil from the BlfD.
There may also be a clue in the unusual features of the well: "The depth of this well shows that it was used at a time when the groundwater level had dropped considerably, which indicates a long drought and certainly poor harvest yields. One can possibly see a reason why the people who lived here at that time sacrificed part of their possessions to their gods in this well,” says Marcus Guckenbiehl, city archaeologist and archivist of Germering.
The experts now want to take a closer look at the remains of the special fountain: “It is extremely rare for a fountain to survive more than 3000 years in such good condition. Its wooden walls have been completely preserved at the bottom and are still partly damp from the groundwater. This also explains the good condition of the finds made of organic materials, which are now to be examined more closely. We hope that this will give us more information about the everyday life of the people of that time,” says Jochen Haberstroh from the BlfD.
Source: Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments