The Frankleben hoard is a significant

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

deposit of the

European Bronze Age The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age. It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC (succ ...

, associated with the

Unstrut The Unstrut () is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. The Unstrut originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt (west of Kefferhausen in the Eichsfeld area) and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Basin. It ...

group (associated with the

Tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

or early

Urnfield culture The Urnfield culture ( 1300 BC – 750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and p ...

(ca. 1500–1250 BC). The site is in the

Geisel valley The Geisel valley (german: Geiseltal) is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel which rises in Mücheln and is a tributary of the Saale, just under long. Its main ...

, formed by a minor tributary of the

Saale River The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale (german: Sächsische Saale) and Thuringian Saale (german: Thüringische Saale), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saal ...

. It was discovered in 1946 in a

brown coal Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

pit near Frankleben, now a part of

Braunsbedra Braunsbedra () is a town in the Saalekreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately 11 km southwest of Merseburg. It was created after 1945 by the merger of Braunsdorf and Bedra. The town Braunsbedra consists of Brau ...

municipality,

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

, Germany. The hoard consists of three ceramic vessels, buried alongside one another. One of the vessels was destroyed by a coal dredger at the time of discovery. The finds consist of a total of about 45 kg of bronze artefacts, most of them

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

s, alongside some axeheads. The discovery was made by the operator of the coal dredger, Anton Wesp, in the "Michael Vesta" pit (now flooded and part of ''Runstedter See'' south of Frankleben, just off the BAB 38 highway). Wesp's dredger destroyed the first vessel almost completely in June 1946 (find I). Wesp returned to the site on 5 July 1946 and discovered a second vessel (find II), from which he was able to save 93 sickles and two axeheads. Wesp examined the site and found a third vessel (find III), containing 130 sickles and 12 axeheads. Find III is thus the best preserved, and its original arrangement was recorded. The sickles were deposited in a helix or fan-like arrangement, and the axeheads were laid on top of the sickles. The original hoard probably contained more than 300 such bronze sickles of the so-called ''Knopfsichel'' ("knob-sickle") type, of which 237 came into the possession of the

Halle State Museum of Prehistory The State Museum of Prehistory (''Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte'') in Halle (Saale) is the archaeological museum of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Founded in Naumburg in 1819, it was moved to Halle in 1825, and within Halle to its pre ...

. An analysis of the hoard was published by Wilhelm Albert von Brunn in 1958. Von Brunn distinguished 91 types of sickles, originating from 182 individual moulds. 179 out of the total of 237 sickles show traces of use. On the sickle blades are patterns. Von Brunn interpreted them as marks or pictograms identifying the sickle-maker. By contrast Sommerfeld (1994) suggested that the patterns represent numeral signs. Sommerfeld further suggested that beyond their obvious usefulness as a tool (as indicated by the traces of use), bronze sickles during the Urnfield period had acquired a secondary function as

commodity money Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods. This is in contrast to representati ...

. Knob-sickles of the Frankleben type were found in four other hoards in the middle Saale region. The tradition of depositing bronze artefacts in hoards in this region predates the Urnfield culture, reaching back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. These early hoards consist of axes, while the Urnfield period hoards are dominated by sickles, even though a smaller number of axes was still included alongside the sickles. In the later Bronze Age, the tradition of hoards is continued, but the sickles are in turn replaced by jewelry such as arm-rings.Chiriaco (2009:11-17)

Numerals

An analysis of the Frankleben hoard found that markings on the sickles constituted a numeral system related to the lunar calendar. According to the

Literature

*Wilhelm Albert von Brunn, ''Der Schatz von Frankleben und die mitteldeutschen Sichelfunde'', Prähistorische Zeitschrift 26 (1958), 1-70. *Christoph Sommerfeld: ''Gerätegeld Sichel. Studien zur monetären Struktur bronzezeitlicher Horte im nördlichen Mitteleuropa'' (Vorgeschichtliche Forschungen Bd. 19), Berlin/New York 1994 *Bettina Stoll-Tucker: ''Mondsicheln in der Erde''. In: Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte (Hrsg.): Schönheit, Macht und Tod. 120 Funde aus 120 Jahren Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle. Begleitband zur Sonderausstellung vom 11. Dezember 2001 bis 28. April 2002 im Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle/Saale. *Marco Chiriaco, ''Der Hortfund von Frankleben: Ein Sichelmassenhort im chronologischen und geographischen Kontext sowie seine Bedeutung'' (2009), {{ISBN, 9783640271153

External links

Masses of Sickles
(Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle). Has a close-up of marks on a sickle and a list of the marks.
Depotfund von Frankleben
(Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle). Photos of the Frankleben Hoard.

(Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle). In German, with pictures of the hoard during salvage. 2nd-millennium BC works 1946 archaeological discoveries Treasure troves of Germany Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt Bronze Age sites in Europe Indo-European archaeological artifacts Archaeological discoveries in Germany Bronze Age Germany Urnfield culture Tumulus culture