A Germanic Lord’s “Death Cult”
Uwe Kahn/BILDAt an ancient burial site in Germany, archaeologists found more than just animal remains. They also found a cauldron surrounded by six human bodies.
When archaeologists uncovered an ancient burial site in Germany, they found something unexpected: a burial complex belonging to a high-status Germanic lord who died 1,500 years ago.
The unusual complex, discovered in Saxony-Anhalt, contained the bodies of multiple animals, including horses, dogs, and cattle. Pieces of intricate gold and silver jewelry were also recovered at the scene.
But investigators also found the bodies of six women encircling a cauldron at the center of the tomb. Experts were soon left with many questions.
Was the cauldron part of an ancient ritual? Did the ceremony involve magic somehow? And why did the Germanic lord’s tomb contain so many bodies?
Daily MailThe tomb’s elaborate artifacts indicate that the site was created for a powerful Germanic lord.
Some believe that the women may have been sacrificed. But others think they may have been part of an ancient “death cult” that was determined to join the lord in the afterlife. Either way, researchers continue to investigate their cause of death, hoping for more clues to solve the mystery.
Ironically enough, the only thing missing from the tomb is the one thing that you’d expect to find there.
“We haven’t found the prince himself yet,” says archaeologist Susanne Friederich. “But maybe his ashes are in the bronze cauldron.”
As many as 60 other graves surround the tomb, which indicates that it was a site of significant importance centuries ago.
Ironically, archaeologists only stumbled across the creepy artifacts when a construction crew started digging for a chicken farm in the area. There’s no saying how many other buried cauldrons like this one exist in Germany.