{"id":"KOCH1992-001","label":"Gadebusch Schwirrplättchen (decorated bone plate)","people_or_site":"Gadebusch, Mecklenburg (metal-ages findspot)","country_current":"Germany","historic_region":"Mecklenburg / Gadebusch","macroregion":"Europe / Central Europe","local_name":"Schwirrplättchen","source_term":"Schwirrplättchen (Koch 1992)","source_language":"German","object_description":"Decorated bone plate, slightly curved, rectangular with rounded corners, a 'fish-tail' worked at the pierced end, the surface ornamented with lines and checkerboard-like patterns.","function_summary":"Identified as a bullroarer plate (Schwirrplättchen) by the music archaeologist Klaus-Peter Koch; no findspot use-context is recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"koch_1992_gadebusch","source_type":"archaeological_synthesis","source_url":"https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jsmv/article/download/83836/78169","page_or_plate":"Koch 1992 p. 120; Beltz 1910 p. 294, Taf. 47 no. 38","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Gadebusch town anchor; findspot-level only.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The bone plate from Gadebusch is dressed for the part: rectangular with rounded corners, a fish-tail worked at the pierced end, its surface covered in lines and checkerboard patterns. Robert Beltz's great Mecklenburg inventory of 1910 filed it modestly — a 'decorated bone implement with a hole for hanging'. Eight decades later the music archaeologist Klaus-Peter Koch called it what he judged it to be: a Schwirrplättchen, a bullroarer plate, kin to the whirred bone of the Mesolithic camps at Pritzerbe and the reindeer-hunter blades Rust spun in his Stellmoor experiments. Only its age stays unsettled: Bronze Age by Koch's reading, early Iron Age by Beltz's own shelf.","pull_quote":"Das bronzezeitliche Schwirrplättchen aus Gadebusch besaß eine rechteckige Form mit abgerundeten Ecken und an dem gelochten Ende die Ausarbeitung eines 'Fischschwanzes'.","pull_quote_translation":"The Bronze Age bullroarer plate from Gadebusch had a rectangular form with rounded corners and, at the pierced end, the working-out of a 'fish-tail'.","pull_quote_cite":"Klaus-Peter Koch (1992), p. 120","term_gloss":"Schwirrplättchen — German, 'little whirring plate', the music-archaeological term for small bone bullroarer plates.","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 600–300 BC","date_qualification":"Beltz estimate; Koch assigns it broadly to the Bronze Age.","date_basis":"disputed_phase","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"beltz1910_mecklenburg, p. 294 and Taf. 47 no. 38; koch1992_gadebusch, p. 120 and Fundliste 7 p. 132","sources":[{"citation":"Klaus-Peter Koch, 'Musikarchäologische Quellen aus dem östlichen Deutschland: Zwischenbericht,' Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 75 (1992), pp. 101–136, at p. 120; Robert Beltz, Die vorgeschichtlichen Altertümer des Grossherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1910), p. 294, Taf. 47 no. 38","url":"https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jsmv/article/download/83836/78169","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240909091002/https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jsmv/article/download/83836/78169"}],"source_citations":"Klaus-Peter Koch, 'Musikarchäologische Quellen aus dem östlichen Deutschland: Zwischenbericht,' Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 75 (1992), pp. 101–136, at p. 120; Robert Beltz, Die vorgeschichtlichen Altertümer des Grossherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1910), p. 294, Taf. 47 no. 38","source_display":"Klaus-Peter Koch, 'Musikarchäologische Quellen aus dem östlichen Deutschland: Zwischenbericht,' Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 75 (1992), pp. 101–136, at p. 120; Robert Beltz, Die vorgeschichtlichen Altertümer des Grossherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1910), p. 294, Taf. 47 no. 38","date_citation_display":"Beltz 1910 Mecklenburg, p. 294 and Taf. 47 no. 38; Koch 1992 Gadebusch, p. 120 and Fundliste 7 p. 132","object_display":"Decorated bone plate, slightly curved, rectangular with rounded corners, a 'fish-tail' worked at the pierced end, the surface ornamented with lines and checkerboard-like patterns.","function_display":"Identified as a bullroarer plate (Schwirrplättchen) by the music archaeologist Klaus-Peter Koch; no findspot use-context is recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"gadebusch","display_name":"Gadebusch Schwirrplättchen (decorated bone plate)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/KOCH1992-001_koch1992-001-beltz1910-gadebusch.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/KOCH1992-001_koch1992-001-beltz1910-gadebusch_thumb.jpg","credit":"Robert Beltz, Die vorgeschichtlichen Altertümer des Grossherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1910); reproduced by Heimatverband Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Musik und Tanz (2019), p. 13","license":"Public-domain original drawing (Beltz 1910; author died 1941); reproduction extracted from © Heimatverband Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2019 booklet, rehosted for non-commercial research.","source_page":"https://www.heimatverband-mv.de/fileadmin/media/Heimatschatzkiste/Musik___Tanz.pdf#page=3","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Gadebusch decorated bone blade, Beltz’s drawing with fish-tail terminal and hole."},"slug":"koch1992-001-gadebusch-mecklenburg-metal-ages-findspot"}