The finely crafted, decorative ceramics.Marcus Guckenbiehl / City of Germering
Posted on 01/22/2023 8:43:21 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a 3,000-year-old wishing well brimming with finely crafted ceramics, jewelry and other items they think the area’s Bronze Age inhabitants lowered into the ground for ritual purposes.
The well is located in Germering, a town in the Fürstenfeldbruck district of Bavaria, just west of Munich, per a statement from the Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection.
Since 2021, archaeologists have been excavating the area ahead of construction on a new distribution center. So far, they’ve discovered more than 70 wells dug from the Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages...
This wishing well, however, is different from all of the others because of what archaeologists found preserved inside: 26 bronze clothing pins and more than 70 pieces of ceramics, including decorative bowls, cups and pots. They also salvaged a bracelet, two metal spirals, an animal tooth, four amber beads, a wooden scoop and the remains of various plants.
The well’s original depth—16 feet—suggests that Bronze Age inhabitants dug it at a time when groundwater levels had dropped considerably. Archaeologists hypothesize that area residents were suffering from poor harvest yields and a long drought...
“Even today, fountains have something magical about them for many people. They drop coins in the hope that their wishes will be granted,” says Mathias Pfeil, who leads the Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection... While we can’t know for sure what motivated our ancestors 3,000 years ago, the items they placed in the well may have been “intended as sacrifices for a good harvest,” he adds.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
The finely crafted, decorative ceramics.Marcus Guckenbiehl / City of Germering
Blackfoot - Wishing Well (HD/Lyrics) | Michael H
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LOL. I thought of the same thing just now.
What the heck happened to him? Just dropped off the face of the Earth.
“Wishing well”? Come on, those people were very poor and didn’t have much in the way of worldly goods to toss into a “wishing well.”
Wouldn’t it be more likely that invaders were coming and they put their valuables in the well hoping they could survive the raid and retrieve them later?
And the fossilized remains of a partridge and a pear tree. It was a big well.
if i only had my own wishing well, i could have found that old wishing well first!
Nice find!
Wishing for world domination and some sort of genocide.
I have a wishing well in my front yard that my husband got for me - it’s very deep and hasn’t been cleaned out and emptied in a while.
Anyone is welcome to toss in coins, jewelry or other valuables at any time!
Think I’ll clear it out this week and see what’s in there...
So no coins, or baby parts...
Fell into a wishing well?
The last person to use the well wished that it would be lost and not discovered again for 3000 years.
Logic, I dig it 🖖
Did they find my watch?
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