One Museum A Month - April: Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Sachsen-Anhalt
We're back! And it's something I have been looking forward to for months: The special exhibit about the Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg in Halle/Saale.
She's a Mesolithic burial that was first discovered in the 1930s. Here's the wikipedia article on her. The museum also did a series of Youtube videos on her; a few years old at this point, but contains most of the important info. The videos are in German but English subtitles are available.
She's a fascinating find, absolutely unique, you'd be hard-pressed to find any burial from the time that has as many and as varied grave-goods as she does, certainly not in the region. She was buried with an infant under a year old and the remains of two other children (more on that later). There was a stone axe, flintstone blades, lots of animal parts - antlers, turtle shells, teeth and tusks, feathers. Pollen suggests she was buried with flowers. You probably know this illustration:
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I actually went last Friday (17th) but I procrastinated the writeup. Forgive me.
Also, before we proceed: CW for human remains. This is an archaeology museum.
The special exhibit was divided in two parts. The first was on shamanism in general, what it is and how it was/is practiced. Calling her a shaman at all is controversial, as there is, of course, no real way to know what religious practices 10,000 years ago in middle Europe were like, what a religious/political leader figure would have looked like, or hell, even why exactly this woman was so important in the first place.
But there are guesses. And while this burial is unique, there's enough similarities with other finds and even documented religious practice, that it is possible to make connections.
The exhibit focused on extant shaman garb, mainly from Siberia, as that is the region in Europe that was colonized very late, and where indigenous religious practices survived a long time. A shaman was/is someone who is able to transcend consciousness, and commune with spirits; they work with their own spirits for guidance. The clothes a shaman wears are very important; the exhibit compared them to a space suit, a special getup that provides protection from malignant forces and is an essential tool in their craft. Often the face is hidden, the shaman is adorned with trinkets, animal parts, and other symbols, and the clothes themselves distort and obscure the shape of the body.
This 18th century attire is one of the oldest still surviving. Notice how the fringe makes is difficult to see where the wearer's body begins or ends. Imagine them moving in that, in a poorly lit environment, while chanting or drumming to put themselves in trance.
Yes that is a human vertebrae on this one. Keep that in mind, it will become important later.
Love the spikes on this one, imagine the sounds!
Drum beaters, richly decorated
Headdress with face-obscuring fringe. Notice the embroidered ears, nose and eyes!
Dolls like these were used to banish illness. The idea is that the illness is caused by a spirit; the doll provides the spirit with a new body to live in, so that it will leave the body of the patient. The one on the right is for painful joints.
There were also some parallels drawn to finds closer in age to the shaman. One was a woman buried in Skateholm, Sweden, some 7,000 years ago. She was buried sitting on a throne made of antlers and they had this incredible reconstruction of her.
Like "our" shaman, she was dark-skinned, dark-haired and blue (or green) eyed.
These two people were buried in Brittany in a rock-lined grave, covered with antlers, and wearing intricate necklaces.
But that's not what we were here for, was it? Here she is.
Apologies for this abysmal photograph, unfortunately it's the only one I took.
Aside from her numerous and unique grave goods, she also had a few physical differences that lead scientists to the shaman-hypothesis. She had a deformity in her skull and top vertebrae that would have meant tilting her head all the way back would have restricted blood flow to her brain; this may have enabled her to put herself in trance. She was so important that even centuries later she wasn't forgotten; two antler masks were found buried close to her, but 200-700 years after she died. Imagine being so important that a nomadic society, centuries after you died, still remembers your grave and brings you gifts.
Imagine digging up a God.
Look how great her teeth are! It's not visible here, but her two upper front teeth have deep holes that reach into the nerve canal. Whether those were inflicted deliberately or the result of wear is unclear, but they must have been made relatively quickly. They were probably painful, but the woman must have known how to take care of her dental health, because there's no damage to the bone that would suggest a bad infection.
And I learned something new about her. Remember how I said she was buried with the remains of three children? In addition to the infant, there were also thoracic vertebrae of two children aged about 6. One was distantly related to her, as was the infant.
The other was the infant's twin brother.
Imagine that! It has been theorized that she and the baby dies closely together, that maybe she tried to heal him and died in the process, but that can't be true. He must have been dead for years before she died, and his (likely) mummified remains were placed in her grave. Personally, I believe all three children died years before her, but of course there's no way to tell for sure.
What's the deal with these children? Why were their remains so important? What's the story there, what did these people believe, what did they do to their dead, I want to knoooow and I'll never have answers.
But isn't it amazing how we have the technology to know any of this at all, from a gravesite that was practically destroyed by idiot Nazis who had no idea what they were even looking at. How we know all this in spite of them.
Anyway. This post is long enough already, so let me wrap up. The permanent exhibit is very cool as well! Lots of fun stuff about the ice age, neanderthals, early humans. First farmers, the Bronze age, Romans, and even the middle ages. It's the best archaeology museum I have ever been too, it really tries to create an immersive experience. You can tell that the state pumped a lot of money into this institution, and they put all of this to good use.
And of course, if you ever have the chance, you really should go see the Nebra sky disk.
Here's some more pictures (restraining myself from posting the details for everything, but ask if you're interested)
Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, Richard-Wagner-Straße 9, 06114 Halle an der Saale, open Tuesday-Friday 09:00-17:00, Weekends and Holidays 10:00-18:00
special exhibit open until 1st November 2026
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