I found a branch of linden in a grave from the end of the first Iron age. It could have a ritual or symbolic signification. Does someone knows bibliography or comparison about this? Thank you
It sounds interesting, but I'm afraid It's quite outside of my field.
A linden branch can be the symbol for justive, love, peace, home country. See : http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/symbolik-der-linde/41770.html
Dear Christelle, I am not sure this is very useful, but maybe have a look at what Daremberg et Saglio have to say about it (http://dagr.univ-tlse2.fr/consulter/high-res/1971/LIGNA/page_0375). Another idea might be to check the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwörterbuch_des_deutschen_Aberglaubens ) and the Hoops Realencyclopädie.
some additional folklore attached to linden trees
https://longwoodgardens.org/blog/2015-03-09t000000/lore-our-trees
There has been found a small golden tree at the oppidum of Manching (Bavaria, Germany). Although it doesn' t come from a burial, it shows the important of tree symbolism within the late Celtic world. You can find bibliography in Internet.
During the excavation of a burial mound in The Netherlands only the remains of a burnt oak were found. No human remains seemed to be buried with it. The impression was that only if the tree itself was buried.
Very interesting. Do you have a bibliography about that oak? Tijmen Kok
Took a while, but I found it again....It's in "Transformation through Destruction" by Fontijn, Van der Vaart & Jansen. Chapter 16.8 Mound 3: a remarkable companion to mound 7 page 302-303. I can send you a pdf if you can't find it on the net..it's freely available on academia by the way.
...and a piece of cremated bone was found next to the large part of then oak tree..
Dear Christelle,
perhaps first of all: What means "branch" in your question? Is it a real branch, meaning a unworked peace of wood - or does it seem to be the rest of a bigger part of something?
How was the branch preserved? Was it solely, was it inside of something?
The archaeologist Neil Price has put down in his work "the viking way" some hintsa for ceremonial staffs from early medieval graves in scandinavia; in the bronze age burials from Hvdiegard and some similar ones there were strange findings inside of leather bags (as special animal bones, wooden dices and in one grave also a staff..if i remember correctly). And the iron age burial from Glauberg (Germany) contained a crown made of birch...
well, what i want to ask is: in what situation and specific detail was your finding?
And on the other hand: Although the hints to specific books and traditions are good - please, to all of you, please dont draw lines of evidence from medieval or "celtic" symbolic meanings backwards into iron age!!!
Hello,
You are right, it is a small branch (une branchette), not worked but placed in the middle of the grave.
Even if such an item "could have" had a symbolic or ritual purpose in a grave, archaeology does not have robust methods to infer what such an unmodified item "might have" been. In the absence of any referent body of other archaeological examples or iconographic hints from other artifacts, this item should be considered most likely an inadvertent inclusion from the natural environment of the past. Even in a burial context, trying to infer an emic meaning (trying to interpret some kind of symbolic-or even a purely functional role-as understood by those ancient Iron Age people) would logically be extremely difficult. The particular item you describe does not seem amenable to productive speculation about potentially "symbolic" roles in the burial.
Yes but if some other occurences did exist then it could have a signification, I'm looking for comparisons and it seems difficult to find. So you are right, it is difficult to interpret ! Rusty Greaves
I should have ask if someone had found something like that in a grave of this period, maybe that's the good question! Rusty Greaves
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