‘Death crowns’ unearthed in forgotten cemetery of 300-year-old hospital in Germany
Outside a hospital in medieval Germany, people lovingly buried their deceased, sometimes placing “death crowns” in the grave.
But as the centuries passed, the cemetery fell into obscurity. It was buried under new constructions and forgotten.
Not anymore.
Archaeologists uncovered the 300-year-old cemetery during excavations in Durlach, the Stuttgart Regional Council said in a March 6 news release.
At first, archaeologists unearthed roughly a dozen skeletons, encouraging a broader investigation, officials said. By the end, over 160 skeletons from the 16th and 17th centuries, or late medieval era, had been found.
The site was a forgotten cemetery of the former Durlach Hospital, archaeologists said. The Durlach Hospital operated on the site from the 1500s to the late 1600s before being destroyed.
Archaeologists also found “Totenkronen,” literally translated as “death crowns,” at the cemetery, officials said.
“Death crowns” were part of a funerary ritual that was common in Germany between the 16th to 19th centuries, according to a 2015 article from Deutschlandfunk, a German radio station.
The ritual focused on those who died unmarried. A “death crown” was a symbolic replacement for a bridal crown, a ritual wedding headpiece, that the deceased person never wore, according to the Regional Archaeological Association of Westphalia-Lippe. These crowns were either placed in the grave or, later on, in churches.
The excavations in Durlach finished in February, officials said. Archaeologists will continue analyzing the skeletons.
Durlach is a neighborhood of Karlsruhe. The city is near the Germany-France border and about 415 miles southwest of Berlin.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from the Stuttgart Regional Council, the blog from the Regional Archaeological Association of Westphalia-Lippe and the article from Deutschlandfunk.
This story was originally published March 8, 2024 at 7:23 AM with the headline "‘Death crowns’ unearthed in forgotten cemetery of 300-year-old hospital in Germany."
