Burial of Children
High-resolution 3D survey of a Celtic double grave
Acting on short notice for extraordinary finds on behalf of our clients- that is our declared ambition and special service. Such as in 2005, when we carried out the documentation of a remarkable Celtic grave in the royal necropolis Reinheim “Horres”.
The grave was precisely documented immediately after its uncovering by the State Authority for Cultural Heritage Saarland, in the same evening and in a few hours time in fact. We deployed a combination of 3D-laser scanning and high resolution 3D-structured light scanning to achieve an accuracy in the submillimetre range.
The Celtic burial pit, found about 20cm beneath todays surface, contained a 12 to 14-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy. Because of the poor state of the girl’s skeleton, only way to determine her gender was through the artifacts she was buried with. The girl (lying left in the picture above) was richly furnished with two bronze neck, arm, and footrings each and three fibulas (one with the depiction of a horse). Further artifacts found were a belt hook with a belt chain, which held 12 blue glass or amber pearls.
The boy was wearing a bronze ring on the right arm – apparently a symbol of status. A small bronze fibula was found on his left chest and an iron arrowhead to the right of the skull. The DNA-examination could not confirm that the two children were siblings. The simultaneous burial does, however, lead to the question, whether this find is an example of the “death following” phenomenon, which was quite common in the Celtic times.