UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) A cultural perspective on Merovingian burial chronology and the grave goods from the Vrijthof and Pandhof cemeteries in Maastricht Kars, M. Publication date 2011 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kars, M. (2011). A cultural perspective on Merovingian burial chronology and the grave goods from the Vrijthof and Pandhof cemeteries in Maastricht. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:24 Sep 2021 The grave goods from the Vrijthof and Pandhof cemeteries The descriptive catalogue: introduction The Vrijthof finds have not been published up to now. The majority of the Pandhof finds have been depicted in the publication of Ypey and Glazema, and are accompanied by short descriptions.413 A selection of these Pandhof finds have been published in detail in a number of other publications of which the discussions are included in the upcoming overview of the finds from Maastricht. A number of the finds are lost; these are, when possible, included in the overview and marked with an asterisk (*). The grave goods from the Vrijthof and Pandhof cemeteries are first discussed per group of resembling objects, such as for example silver buckles, garnet disc brooches, etc. The points of discussion per group involve for each object their morphological characteristics, condition, find location in the grave, associated finds and the gender assignation on the basis of these finds.414 The objects are form the majority classified and dated on the basis of the typo-chronologies of Siegmund, the Franken AG and Legoux, Périn and Vallet. Thereafter parallels/resembling type-groups that are known from other cemeteries and their associated dates are discussed and compared to those of Siegmund, the Franken AG and Legoux, Périn and Vallet. If specialized works for the specific groups of objects or relevant discussions of these groups in publications of other cemeteries are available, they are introduced and their dating schemes are included in the discussion. On the basis of this information a final dating for each object is proposed. The date ranges of the various typo-chronology schemes define the final Maastricht date for each object (see List 2 for an overview).415 A final date is assigned to the complete assemblages (graves) on the basis of the object dates (see List 1 for an overview of the dated graves). More specific morphological details of each object are recorded in the database. The objects that could not be classified and dated according to the available typo-chronologies are unique specimens for which no parallels from the late Roman or Merovingian world are known till now. These objects are classified as ‘Maastricht types’. The graves are dated on the basis of the obtained object-dates, but are placed in a scheme of Maastricht phases (Table 14). These dates are based on the scheme of the Franken AG. This scheme is chosen because their research area is not far from Maastricht and it is the most recent one that is based on carefully motivated (chronological) types. It is argued in this thesis that short phases, such as the phases of the Franken AG, do not represent historical and cultural reality. It will however appear that the graves from Maastricht are hardly ever dated in just one of the phases; for the majority they are dated in two or more phases. The final dating of the graves The graves will be dated in Maastricht phases (table 14; see list 1 for the overview of the dated graves) on the basis of the dates of their individual contents as follows: 413 Ypey/Glazema 1955. 414 A complete overview of the graves, the cemetery plan and the exact find location of the finds and skeletal remains in the grave will be published in the two upcoming volumes of the all-round analysis of the Servatius complex. 415 The final ‘Maastricht date’ can be different from the date of the first type to which the finds from the Vrijthof and Pandhof are assigned (the alternative types and dates are not included in the list but are included in the data base). The final Maastricht date is based on the date range of all the type groups to which the finds are assigned. 127 -The date of the grave does not have to cover the complete date range of the objects, although this date range on the basis of the individual objects offers interesting research possibilities (see the discussion above in part II). A shorter time span than this complete range is aimed at, in order to gain some insights in the chronological development of the cemetery, but only one that can be reasoned -This date should preferably correspond with the phase(s) in which the majority of the objects are dated. -When a shorter time-span cannot be reasoned, than the complete date-range that is covered by the types is assigned to a grave. -The date-range of the youngest type does not have to be indicative for the dating of the grave; but the youngest type can never fall outside the Maastricht phase(s) to which the grave is assigned; exceptions can be types of which the dating is questionable/insignificant/less reliable than the other dates. -The most reliable dates are those of types which already know a thorough research history. These are belts, brooches, and weapons. -The majority of the pottery and glass vessels are supposed to be more subject to local production preferences than the other categories; their dates (which are based on borrowed typologies) have less influence on the final date of the grave. -The object-types with a long date-range (types of which it is claimed that the chronological significance is not established yet, for example knives) have less influence on the final dating of the grave, but if these are the only objects in the grave, then the grave is dated according to this long date-range. -If the date-ranges of de various object types are consecutive but do not overlap, than the last phase of the oldest object type will be incorporated in the final date of the grave. -If the oldest type has a date-range which does not show an overlap, and neither falls in a phase just before the second oldest type (there is no connection between the phases), than it is considered to be a Merovingian antique. The date of this type has no influence on the final date of the grave. -The beads do not have a strong influence on the final dating of a grave, only when they are the only find from the grave (Their production was for the majority locally organised, and the reliability of the dating method for the complete strings is delicate). This exercise leads to the phasing of the individual graves, but, as it was argued before, the date range of all the objects of one assemblage should not be ignored in favour of the establishment of an overview of datable graves (see therefore list 2 for an overview of the dated objects per grave). 128 List 1: The datable graves from the Vrijthof and Pandhof cemeteries Contents of the tables: -Context: number of the find context -BS: Biological Sex (F= Female, M= Male; more than one individual was observed in a number of the contexts/graves). -Context type: the identified find context of the objects -Maastricht phases: phases A-I with absolute dates: Maastricht phases A Third / Fourth century B 400-460/80 C 460/80-510/25 D 510/25-±565 E ±565-580/90 F 580/90-610/20 G 610/20-640/50 H 640/50-670/80 I 670/80-725 J 725-… Table 14. The Maastricht phases and their associated absolute dates. The contents of the graves and the datings on the basis of which the final dates of the graves/contexts are obtained can be consulted in List 2. The datable graves/contexts from the Vrijthof cemetery Context BS Context type Maastricht phases 309 M Grave B B 400 460/480 66 M Grave B D 400 565 294 Grave B F 400 610/620 408 - Find B F 400 610/620 64 - Possible grave C C 460/80 510/525 264 - Grave C C 460/80 510/525 235 F Grave C D 460/80 565 286 F Grave C D 460/80 565 306 - Grave C D 460/80 565 271 - Grave C E 460/80 580/590 279 - Find C E 460/80 580/590 305 - Grave C E 460/80 580/590 13 M+F Grave C F 460/80 610/620 283 - Grave C G 460/80 640/650 76 - Grave C H 460/80 670/680 101 - Grave D D 510/525 565 17 - Possible grave D E 510/525 580/590 88 M Possible grave D E 510/525 580/590 96 M Grave D E 510/525 580/590 115 F Grave D E 510/525 580/590 168 - Grave D E 510/525 580/590 173 F Grave D E 510/525 580/590 187 F Grave D E 510/525 580/590 201 - Grave D E 510/525 580/590 230 F Grave D E 510/525 580/590 129 250 - Grave D E 510/525 580/590 259 - Grave D E 510/525 580/590 314 F Grave D E 510/525 580/590 68 - Grave D F 510/525 610/620 89 - Pit D F 510/525 610/620 258 - Grave D F 510/525 610/620 12 - Grave D G 510/525 640/650 18 - Grave D G 510/525 640/650 85 F Grave