Excavations at Berlin’s historic Molkenmarkt might be drawing to a close, but the sprawling site—which dates back to the German capital’s enigmatic origins—still has surprises in store. This week, authorities announced that they have found two mid-15th-century figurines depicting saints, plus a stash of nearly 200 reliquaries constructed to hold the bones of other venerated Christian figures.
“The high number of figures in a closed find context and the preserved deposits make this find unique,” said the site’s scientific project leader, Eberhard Völker, in press materials.
The name Molkenmarkt, or “whey market,” stems from the square’s original role during the 13th century, when Berlin first formed. By the 14th century, a new, larger market superseded it, but the area remained densely populated until World War II, when residents were forced relocate. Today, Molkenmarkt sits in West Berlin’s posh Mitte neighborhood. Excavations at the site began in 2019, ahead of a massive development project that will transform the area into a new hotspot. Those digs have already turned up approximately 600,000 treasures.
The statuette of Saint Catherine. Photo: Berlin National Monument Office, Julia-Marlen Schiefelbein.
A miraculously intact figurine of Saint Catherine, measuring nearly four and half inches tall, has proven the centerpiece of this latest cache. Saint Catherine, who has been portrayed by artists like Artemisia Gentilleschi, Raphael, and Jacopo Tintoretto, was extremely popular in the late Middle Ages as an emergency helper and patron saint, said the State Monument Office in press materials. She holds a sword and a wheel—the two weapons employed in her harrowing martyrdom.
This week’s find also exhumed a nearly three-inch-tall statuette of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus in her left arm. Important pieces (namely, their heads) have gone missing.
Sebastian Heber, head of the Berlin State Monuments Office’s department for preservation of historical monuments, called this statuette and the one depicting Saint Catherine “extremely rare for the Berlin space—and beyond.” Lutheranism started spreading across the country just a century later, and the denomination notably does not venerate saints. Heber said the Saint Catherine and Madonna figures “both offer a special insight into the bourgeois piety of the late Middle Ages.”
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