Frankish Girl's Grave @museum.de

F: " ... and because she was so beautiful, they placed her in a glass coffin inscribed with Snow White's name and title, where she appears as if she were merely sleeping", ...

M: ... to quote the fairy tale "Snow White" by the Brothers Grimm.

F: The girl lying in this glass coffin was also dubbed “Snow White” by the people of Offenbach. You’re looking at a Frankish burial from the 6th or 7th century AD. The skeleton is that of a roughly eleven-year-old girl. Anthropological investigations have shown that she died from a dental abscess.

M: The grave goods – a comb and a pair of scissors – are instructive. Perhaps the girl dressed people’s hair, though the scissors may also mean that she worked as a seamstress. But one thing is clear: even at the age of eleven, she was a full member of her farming and village community. Eleven-year olds were regarded as adults in those days.

F: The Frankish girl's grave provides evidence of the Franks occupying and settling on the land after their victory over the Alemanni in the 6th century. Whole-body burials in cemeteries with single-row graves are typical of the period. The largest Frankish cemetery was in Bieber, and that’s where Offenbach’s Snow White was discovered during excavations in 1977.