Hallstatt culture

Name-giving burial culture

The excavations at the Hallstatt burial ground are among the most significant worldwide. Particularly the rich burial objects - ornate weaponry and jewellery - are responsible for the naming of a whole epoch after the village in the Salzkammergut.

At a conference in 1874, the Swedish prehistorian Hans Hildebrand suggests that the Early Iron Age in Central Europe from around 800-450 BC should now be described as “Hallstatt culture”.

Not only is iron used more in the Early Iron Age, funeral traditions change too. While cremation is favoured during the Bronze Age, the dead are now increasingly laid to rest in burial mounds like those in Hallstatt.

It is thanks to the foreman of the salt mine at the time, Johann Georg Ramsauer, that the archaeological treasures from the Hallstatt burial ground come to light. The first graves are stumbled upon by coincidence while digging for gravel. Ramsauer understands the value of the finds and carefully uncovers nearly 1,000 graves over subsequent years. And he has the objects precisely documented and drawn. An absolute exception in the early phase of archaeology.