Halsenbach

Halsenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Emmelshausen, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in the Hunsrück about 2 km north of Emmelshausen and roughly 7 km west of the Rhine. The municipality’s area is 1 003 ha and its elevation is 410 m above sea level.Constituent communitiesThree outlying communities belong to Halsenbach named Ehr, Ehrerheide and Mermicherhof.HistoryDuring building work on the Autobahn A 61 (Ludwigshafen-Koblenz), an Iron Age burying ground was unearthed, and in 1971 a dig was conducted there. The burying ground itself is a group of 13 individual barrows arranged along a trail leading across the Hunsrück and in places the heights along the Rhine, which was expanded in Roman times. For some of the cremations, the barrow was raised right over the charred funeral pyre. Among the grave goods that were worthiest of note were an open-worked belthook and an iron belt ring. The ceramics that were preserved, among them a thrown clay bottle, date the burying ground to the later Hunsrück-Eifel Culture (eras IIA to IIB), or the second fourth of the 5th century BC to the earlier half of the 3rd century BC.