THE CAIRN-NECROPOLIS OF SCHMIE/MAULBRONN

 Fig.1: cairn V of 10 stone grave mounds of the inner area. The basic wall of accurately square-cut sandstone (you can see on the foreground) is burst partially. The steps, hardly recognizable, are still buried.

This extraordinary „medieval quarry“ is called "Sommerhälde" or „Steingrub“ (stonegrave), located 2 km south of Maulbronn. It is supposed to have been the provider of the boulders for the cistercian monastery of Maulbronn, built in 1147.

In reality we face a colossal 700 m long nekropolis, which is protected by a bullwark in the same length and height of over 20 m to the valley-side, which consists of single but linked cairns built in a row, each of them bares it´s own hidden or visible burial chamber. This necropolis incorporates approximately 20 cairns. Four portals of burial chambers are open but filled up with rubble.

Fig. 2 shows one of the portals.

Comparison to Etruscan graveyards

The "Hälden" of Schmie, 2 km south of Maulbronn (pic. 3), are comparable to similar burial-places of the Etruscans, f. e. the tomba-necropolis of Cerveteri north of Rome (pic. 4). The phenomena of this newly discovered German tumuli of stone is the odd fact, that they are erected without exception in very large and deep quarries, but Cerveteri, too, is broken out of the tuff-rock on a very large extense.

The round tumuli are standing close together as in the "Sommerhälde" of Schmie. Their round basic-wall is carved out of the rock by the metre. On top a tumuli of earth is heaped up. Only one narrow dead-way leads to the single tombs. In Schmie such a narrow lane is delivered in a document of 1540 as "Häldengasse".