News
Nov 24, 2009
Farmers, potters, blacksmiths – 6000 years of history unearthed
Exhibition “Treasures from the Pipeline Trench” showcases excavation finds along the OPAL route
Anklam, 19 November 2009. Traces of our ancestors often lie right under our feet. This once again became apparent during the construction work for the OPAL pipeline (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungs-Leitung – Baltic Sea Pipeline Link), which allowed archaeologists from the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Archaeological Heritage Service to have a good look under the ground: staff have been searching for archaeological monuments along the planned pipeline route in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which is about 100 kilometers long, since September 2007. Now, for the first time, the results of their work will be on public display in the “Museum im Steintor” in Anklam. The exhibition entitled “Treasures from the Pipeline Trench” showcases some of the discoveries made and illustrates the current excavation work, but also shows what life was like in former times, with information panels and photographs. The oldest discoveries by the archeologists date back to the beginning of the Neolithic funnel beaker culture (about 4000 years B.C.) and the most recent are historical reminders of day-to-day life in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is the hacksilber treasure unearthed near Anklam and which dates back to the early 9th century – the well-preserved coins mostly stamped in North Africa have distinctive incisions in the edges. “It is often the small details which provide us with interesting clues into the lives of our ancestors”, Dr. Jens-Peter Schmidt, the archeologist responsible at the Heritage Service in Schwerin, explains. “For example, these cuts, so-called test marks, are made to test the coins for their authenticity. There were obviously so many counterfeit coins in circulation at that time that the coins had to be tested frequently – for the owner’s own sake.” At another find spot near Zarnekow, it was 700 kilograms of smelting cinders – a waste product of iron manufacture – and the sites of about 100 bloomery furnaces that aroused great interest. “This discovery enables us to prove for the first time that there was a real ‘industrial zone’ for iron manufacture in Western Pomerania in the Early Roman Iron Age – from the birth of Christ to 150 A.D.”, the expert explains enthusiastically. “Previously we were only aware of such sites from the Late Roman Iron Age, i.e. 150 - 375 A.D.”, Dr. Schmidt added.
The archeologists from the Heritage Service in Schwerin excavated 53 sections of the pipeline route before construction work began. And even though construction work has now begun, the archaeologists still monitor the work in close cooperation with the construction supervisors. “The archaeologists monitor the work from the very beginning in case there were any valuable historical artifacts not found during the previous archeological examinations”, Hans-Georg Egelkamp, OPAL Project Manager at WINGAS, explains. Just a few weeks ago a very well-preserved urn burial field over 2000 years old was discovered and recovered in Steinfurth near Karlsburg.
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. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the OPAL will cross about 100 kilometers through the districts of Ostvorpommern and Uecker-Randow. The pipeline was commissioned by OPAL NEL TRANSPORT GmbH and E.ON Ruhrgas AG and is being built by WINGAS; the archeological investigations are fully funded by the companies. The planned commissioning date for the pipeline is the fall of 2011.
Treasures from the Pipeline Trench
An exhibition of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Archaeological Heritage Service, Department for Archaeology and the Preservation of Historical Monuments
with the support of WINGAS and OPAL NEL TRANSPORT GmbH, Kassel,
will run from 19 November 2009 until 28 February 2010
at the Museum im Steintor, Schulstraße 1, 17389 Anklam.
The museum’s opening times are:
Wednesday to Friday: 11 am to 3.30 pm
Sunday: 1 pm to 3.30 pm
Monday and Tuesday: closed
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