The first publications
As early as 1848, Josef Gaisberger, a canon at St. Florian, wrote a small brochure about the first 58 graves titled ‘Die Gräber bei Hallstatt im oberösterreichischen Salzkammergute’. Friedrich Simony, occupant of the first Chair of Geography in Austria, reported on the early years up to 1850, in a book called ‘Die Alterthümer vom Hallstätter Salzberg und dessen Umgebung’.Upon completion of the Ramsauer excavations in 1863 and of those subsequently undertaken by Gustav Schubert, Eduard von Sacken published in 1868 the first extensive documentation on the prehistoric cemetery in Hallstatt, ‘Das Grabfeld von Hallstatt in Oberösterreich und dessen Alterthümer’. This treatise paved the way for Hallstatt to give its name to an entire epoch, the Early Iron Age. The term ‘Hallstatt Culture’ was introduced in 1874 by the Swedish archaeologist Hans Hildebrand and covers approximately the time from the 8th to the 5th century BC.
(Kern, A.)
