KOCH1992-004 - archaeological find
Bagow whirring blade
Germany - former Kreis Brandenburg - Europe
Function not recorded
Source term: Schwirrer / Wirbelaerophon
Schwirrer / Wirbelaerophon: German, "whirrer" and "whirled aerophone" - the archaeological terms for a bullroarer.
A Mesolithic bone whirring blade from Bagow, west of Brandenburg an der Havel - claimed as one, at least. The object itself is unrecovered: what survives is its place name, set down without qualification among the whirled aerophones of eastern Germany in Klaus-Peter Koch's 1992 inventory, in the same short line as the better-known blades from Pritzerbe, Fernewerder and Wustermark. What Koch says of their shape he says of all of them together: flat bone, long and oval, a single hole through the broader end. Of the Bagow piece alone - its size, its marks, where it rests now - nothing.
Fundliste 7: Aerophone. Wirbelaerophone (Schwirrer) […] Mesolithikum: Bagow, Kr. Brandenburg […]
Find list 7: Aerophones. Whirled aerophones (bullroarers) […] Mesolithic: Bagow, district of Brandenburg […]
Koch 1992:132
- Object
- No object-level description has been recovered. Koch's find list gives the locality alone. His accompanying description of the East German Mesolithic set - the surviving pieces are bone, not wood; elongated-oval with a tendency to a streamlined form; the perforation at the one broader end; lengths between 13 and 21 cm, widths 2.0 to 2.5 cm, thickness under 0.7 cm - is stated for the group as a whole and is not a measurement of the Bagow piece.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - Bagow village anchor from public OpenStreetMap/Nominatim gazetteer data (Bagow, Päwesin, Potsdam-Mittelmark); a locality anchor only, not a findspot - Koch gives no find location within the village.
- Source location
Page references
printed p. 132, Fundliste 7 (Mesolithikum); group description p. 119