Archaeologists Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Wishing Well in Germany

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | January 18, 2023 | Sarah Kuta

[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.

[Mark17]

The last person to use the well wished that it would be lost and not discovered again for 3000 years.

He probably got his wish. 🤗

[null and void]

You’ve always got something to hide;
Something you just can’t tell.
And the only time that you’re satisfied
Is with your feet in the wishin’ well.

[ViLaLuz]

Great album!

[week 71]

As long as some girl with long brown hair doesn’t emerge from it.

[Tupelo]

Wishing well? Or maybe the stash of Heinz the Highwayman.

[MD Expat in PA]

Cindy, the TV’s leaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxCSMcg44_E

[week 71]

LOL! Had never seen that.

[kearnyirish2]

That was how Irish coastal settlements protected their valuables from Viking raids; hide them in the well.

[Beowulf9]

I have some of those :)

[moovova]

"Come on, those people were very poor and didn’t have much in the way of worldly goods to toss into a “wishing well.”"

Lol...do you think poor people don't buy lottery tickets?

[Leep]

surprising.. most just jumped the turn style.

[SunkenCiv]

Obviously they did have nice possessions, made locally, and were just as superstitious as people are today.

The origin of the wishing wells, at least in Europe, had to do with preventing a world flood, btw. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Dang thing works!

[SunkenCiv]

I throw on “Fox Chase” every now and then.

[SunkenCiv]

The Irish surely didn’t dig wells for the water... /rimshot

Three Irishmen walked out of a pub.

Hey, it could happen.

[SunkenCiv]

These archaeologists did well...

[SunkenCiv]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF-oko-c8EM

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/05/why-terence-trent-darby-became-sananda-maitreya-it-was-that-or-death

[SunkenCiv]

Originally, there was a sign over the well, "exact change only".

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Archaeologists hypothesize that area residents were suffering from poor harvest yields and a long drought...***

They had Glo-Bull Warming back then? Who knew!

[DouglasKC]

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?

Thanks for the common sense answer. It's like finding buried treasure and theorizing that pirates were sacrificing to their gods.