Hügelgräber im Illertal bei Tannheim

The Hügelgräber im Illertal near Tannheim are over forty burial mounds from the later Hallstatt period, dating between 650 and 475 BCE. They stand beside the Iller, which here marks the border between Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The mounds lie in woodland called Härdtle, about five hundred metres south of Tannheim station.

Archaeologists uncovered twenty-three of the mounds between 1904 and 1909 under the direction of Max Geyr von Schweppenburg and Peter Goessler. The work was sponsored by the Counts of Schaesberg, whose estate still holds the land. Many finds went to Stuttgart’s Landesmuseum Württemberg, while smaller pieces remain in Tannheim town hall. Five of the graves held chariots, though these were not weapons but everyday vehicles for the journey to the afterlife.

Visitors walk among the grassy mounds, each a low rise of earth capped with clay. Some graves held bodies laid on wooden boards or in simple wooden coffins. Bronze vessels and horse trappings show heavy use before burial, while iron tools like a ploughshare appear in a few mounds. The dead were placed on the west side of each mound, with their belongings to the east, though no single direction dominates across the whole field.