Archeological excavations at the gallows hill of Quedlinburg provide insights into an early modern place of execution

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Burial of a man with stones on his upper body on the former gallows hill in Quedlinburg. | Quelle: Jörg Orschiedt | Copyright: State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt | Download

Hinweis zur Verwendung von Bildmaterial: Die Verwendung des Bildmaterials zur Pressemitteilung ist bei Nennung der Quelle vergütungsfrei gestattet. Das Bildmaterial darf nur in Zusammenhang mit dem Inhalt dieser Pressemitteilung verwendet werden. Falls Sie das Bild in höherer Auflösung benötigen oder Rückfragen zur Weiterverwendung haben, wenden Sie sich bitte direkt an die Pressestelle, die es veröffentlicht hat.

Coffin burial from the gallows hill in Quedlinburg. | Quelle: Jörg Orschiedt | Copyright: State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt | Download

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During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, public execution sites where corporeal punishnment and death sentences were carried out were common throughout Central Europe. The archaeology of execution sites is concerned with researching material traces of such places of capital punishment, such as the locations of historically known gallows or human remains that were often buried directly on these sites. The study of such places provides remarkable insights into penal practices in the Middle Ages and early modern times. In the past two years, teaching and research excavations have been carried out in the area of the former gallows hill in Quedlinburg. This execution site is attested starting from 1662 and was abandoned only in 1809. Due to the numerous findings and finds, the investigations by the LDA Saxony-Anhalt were continued and intensified this year.

Among other things, it was possible to document a burial in a wooden coffin. Coffins are very rarely found in places of execution. The skeleton lying on its back in the coffin with its hands folded on its stomach area and a rosary chain was very well preserved. This comparatively dignified burial suggests suicide rather than execution as the reason for the place of the burial. Suicide would have excluded a person from a burial in a regular cemetery. The burial of a man lying on his back with a large stone on his chest on the other hand may be a so-called 'revenant grave'. For fear of the dead man's return, his body was weighed down and tied up in the grave.

In addition to complete human skeletons, two bone pits were uncovered already in 2023 and will be further investigated this year. The finds from these pits represent the body parts of those who were hung or wheeled and likely exhibited for some time as a deterrence on the gallows hill, which would have been widely visible at one of the main roads leading into the city. As part of periodic clean-up work, the execution site was cleared by the executioner and his assistants and body parts disposed of in pits. Archaeological research at Quedlinburg thus provides interesting insights into the routines of an early execution site, usually omitted from written accounts.