Early Celtic Burial Mounds of Litzendorf

A piece of culture on the MTB route. Is definitely worth an eye-catcher.

This Celtic cemetery is the most beautiful of its kind in Upper Franconia. Using six reconstructed burial mounds, you get a visual idea of how the Celts buried their dead. In the adjacent forest there are 33 other burial mounds, some of which are no longer so clearly visible. The entire complex was built around 700 BC. Created by Celtic farmers in the 1st century BC.Probably the most beautiful early Celtic cemetery in Upper Franconia, located on the state road from Litzendorf to Geisfeld, originally consisted of more than 50 burial mounds. The mounds were burial monuments of early Celtic farmers, whose size and furnishings indicate the social status of the deceased. Some mounds reached 4 m high and were crowned with a stone stele. The base of the hill, which could be up to 25 m in diameter, was surrounded by a ring of stone to mark a boundary between the living and the dead.When the cemetery was built around 700 B.C. When it was built in the 1st century BC, it was probably consecrated with a small sanctuary, which consisted of two concentric circular ditches. During the 7th century B.C. In the 4th century BC, the dead were burned on a pyre at the burial site and the ash urns were placed in the spacious, wooden burial chambers, which were understood to be the dwellings of the dead. Numerous ceramic vessels, which also contained food and drink for a banquet with deceased ancestors in the afterlife, as well as a few personal bronze jewelry completed the grave furnishings. Only the chiefs were placed in the grave with the rare swords as a sign of their rank. During the 6th century B.C. In the 4th century BC, people switched to inhumation, with new graves being dug into many of the existing mounds. During the 5th century, only a few graves were laid in this cemetery and it was abandoned around 400 BC at the latest.As early as the 19th century, all grave mounds in the forest had been removed. They were restored again in 1983 by the Scheßlitz Forestry Office. Between 1989 and 1992, six burial mounds and the small sanctuary north of the forest were excavated. In their place, six burial mounds were rebuilt in collaboration with the Bamberg district and the municipality of Litzendorf in order to show visitors the original size of these impressive prehistoric grave monuments.

Old Celtic cemetery with about 33 restored barrows, some in the forest. Largest Celtic cemetery in Upper Franconia.