News
Oct 22, 2009
Archaeologists uncover 2000 year-old burial ground
Staff from the Archaeological Heritage Service have unearthed hidden treasures in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania during construction work for the OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungs-Leitung – Baltic Sea Pipeline Link).
Steinfurth/Kassel. Staff from the Archaeological Heritage Service have unearthed hidden treasures in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania during construction work for the OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungs-Leitung – Baltic Sea Pipeline Link). Archaeologists discovered a 2000 year-old burial ground in Steinfurth near Karlsburg (in the district of Ostvorpommern). “We had already surveyed the land to the right and left of the site of this discovery in the preliminary examinations, but only stumbled across the burial ground while monitoring the construction work”, excavation director Dominik Forler reported. “Urn fields in this state of preservation are very rare and therefore of particular significance.” The burial ground in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is one of the most valuable discoveries made along the OPAL pipeline route.
The 30 to 50 urns from the Pre-Roman Iron Age date back to the 2nd and 1st century BC. “These are burials with and without stone protection; in other words, some of the urns have a stone as a lid”, Forler explains. Once the receptacles have been sketched, photographed and recovered, the urn contents that have been protected by the stone covers will be examined in the workshop of the Archaeological Heritage Service. The archaeologists then expect to find burial offerings, for example dress pins that were typically worn in that era.
The construction of every pipeline offers archaeologists a unique opportunity to look below the Earth’s surface. Before the pipeline construction work even began, monument conservators were busy examining the 100 kilometer stretch of the OPAL in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and excavated 53 areas there in total. They made remarkable discoveries such as a Roman Iron Age settlement dating back to between year zero and 370 AD near Wrangelsburg south of Greifswald in addition to well-preserved wells and furnaces from the Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages near Pasewalk. And even once construction work has begun, the archaeologists monitor the work in close cooperation with the construction supervisors. This enables them to recover and preserve as many of the historic artifacts along the planned route as possible. An exhibition which opens on the 19th November at the local history museum in Anklam, the “Museum im Steintor”, provides a preview of the treasures: those interested can marvel at a selection of the most beautiful artifacts recovered along the route of the OPAL pipeline.
With a capacity of 36 billion cubic meters of natural gas and a length of around 470 kilometers, the OPAL pipeline is one of Germany's biggest energy infrastructure projects of recent years. The pipeline will connect the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline (which runs through the Baltic Sea) with the European natural gas pipeline system and will run from Lubmin near Greifswald, through Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Saxony, all the way to the Czech Republic. The pipeline is to be built by WINGAS, as commissioned by OPAL NEL TRANSPORT GmbH and E.ON Ruhrgas AG. The pipeline is planned to go into operation in fall 2011.
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