The Bullroarer Atlas

KOCH1992-005 - archaeological find

Burgwall whirring blade

Germany - Brandenburg - former Kreis Gransee - Europe

Archaeological datec. 9600–4000 BCMesolithic classification only; object not individually dated.

Function not recorded

The Nottingham notched bullroarer, shown for comparison; not the Burgwall blade (unphotographed).
Representative — not this record’s object. · The Nottingham notched bullroarer, shown for comparison; not the Burgwall blade (unphotographed). Image source

Source term: Schwirrer / Wirbelaerophon

Schwirrer / Wirbelaerophon: German, "whirrer" and "whirled aerophone" - the archaeological terms for a bullroarer.

North of Bagow in the lake country near Zehdenick, Koch's 1992 survey enters a second bare place-name under the same heading: "Burgwall, Kr. Gransee," among the Mesolithic whirled aerophones of eastern Germany. As with its Havel-country neighbours, no photograph, measurement or excavation account survives - only the entry itself, filed in the same short list as the better-documented blades from Pritzerbe and Fernewerder.

Fundliste 7: Aerophone. Wirbelaerophone (Schwirrer) […] Mesolithikum: […] Burgwall, Kr. Gransee […]

Find list 7: Aerophones. Whirled aerophones (bullroarers) […] Mesolithic: […] Burgwall, district of Gransee […]

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 Burgwall piece.
Function
Not recorded.
Map confidence
medium - Burgwall village anchor from public OpenStreetMap/Nominatim gazetteer data (Burgwall, Zehdenick, Oberhavel; Zehdenick lay in the former Kreis Gransee, which is how Koch files it). Locality anchor only, not a findspot.
Source location
Page references

printed p. 132, Fundliste 7 (Mesolithikum); group description p. 119

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