A castle on every mountain – that is how the Swabian Jura is known today. As early as the 16th century, contemporaries valued the noble castles as they denote different territories within a landscape. The painting “Filstalpanorama” was created in 1534/35 due to a dispute between the imperial city of Ulm and the Duchy of Württemberg over rights of way in the valley. In the painting, the castles Staufeneck and Ramsberg on spurs of the Rehgebirge mark different dominions. The location of the castles on the foothill enabled a visual appropriation of the landscape. Widely visible, the castle demonstrated administrative and military power. In castle research, the altitude is also understood as an expression of aristocratic consciousness: The residences demonstrate the distance between the rulers and their subjects.

In Medieval Times, castle sieges were rare. Instead, castle raids were common. Often, the owners handed the castle over to someone else after being threatened or due to legal processes. However, as special occurrences, castle sieges were often portrayed in art, as this illustration from the Codex Manesse shows.

The 14th century painting demonstrates the significance of a castle in battle: Besides the height of the walls and towers, the strategic position of the castle within the landscape was important for military purposes. Due to the altitude, the castle offered protection and shelter. Further, the castle was used as a strategic center for military actions into its surrounding areas. The castles, thus, were military instruments, and symbols of power.

A rare and special archaeological find has its origins at the Hiltenburg near Bad Ditzenbach in SW-Germany. In late medieval times, the castle was domicile and seat of office to the Counts of Helfenstein. During excavations of the castle keep, the Kreisarchäologie of Göppingen found the 68 cm long iron spearhead in the debris. It dates to November 9th, 1516, the date duke Ulrich von Württemberg destroyed the castle. Originally, the weapon was kept in the tower. The bend spearhead shows that it fell from the tower during the raid of the castle. Prior to its fall into the castle grounds, the weapon was used in battle and for hunting boar and bear. This is also shown in depictions of the Codex Manesse.

The typical image of medieval castles in Germany consists of high walls with battlements, a representative residence, and a towering keep. From the castle keep, in the case of the Hiltenburg 30 m high, the surrounding landscape was observed. Further, the tower often acted as treasury of the castle, as valuable objects and documents were stored here. Thus, the castle keep displayed power through its enormous size.

Scepters as symbols of kingly power were not only used in Medieval Europe but also in the Ancient Near East. The displayed ivory scepter was found in Western Syria, in Qaṭna, where it was placed into the Royal Tomb between 1500 and 1300 BCE. Originally (around 3000 BCE), a scepter might have been seen as a kind of shepherd’s crook, which was used by the king, the good shepherd, to guide his subjects in godly reign.

The displayed scepter was constructed of three ivory pieces of a hippopotamus’ tusk. The crowning of the scepter seems to imitate the papyrus-like capitals of Egyptian columns, which reflects the many contacts between Egypt and Syria during the second millennium BCE. The indentation at the end of the scepter suggests that originally there might have been a now missing piece present in the scepter. This could have been a gemstone or a precious metal inlay.

The two approximately 85 cm high statues represent the ideal appearance of an Old Syrian king. The hem of the Syrian mantle with rolled borders (the so-called Syrian “Wulstmantel”) surrounding the shoulders and a raised coiffure fixed by a ribbon are visible. A well-groomed beard surrounds the cheeks and chin. This type of depiction was reserved exclusively for kings and gods. The two figures made of basalt, a grey and extremely hard volcanic rock, were originally located to the left and right of the entrance to the royal tomb of Qaṭna. The rulers of stone stood enthroned in front of the tomb until a fire destroyed the palace and buried it under tons of stone and clay brick rubble.

From today’s perspective, the fire was a stroke of luck. Through this sudden catastrophe, the arrangement of the statues and the different clay vessels and food scraps placed in front of the statues were preserved. The head of the left statue was discovered in the vicinity of bowls containing food remains. Contemporary sources explain that the food was an offering to the deceased kings. These offerings were for family and religious reasons, but they were also important means of legitimation. By paying homage to his faded predecessors, the incumbent king symbolically placed himself in the long line of an (allegedly) unbroken sequence of venerable ancestors. The high age of the two basalt statues, they had been made some centuries before their last worship around 1340 BC, might have been beneficial to this idea of legitimacy.

More Information on the Qaṭna-Project