Binsenwerder

Binsenwerder was a small island in the Lieps, a lake near Neubrandenburg in Mecklenburgische Seenplatte. It lay south-east of the lake close to Usadel and measured about 3,000 square metres. Archaeologists found potsherds from before the Slavs arrived and from the 13th century. The island belonged to a group of Slav settlements around the Lieps and the southern Tollensesee. Experts think it was linked to Bacherswall or Hanfwerder, though no small finds prove the connection. In the late 13th century a mill dam raised the Tollense and Lieps by more than a metre. The island vanished under water and reeds took its place. The name ‘Binsenwerder’ comes from the German word for reeds, because people mistook the new growth for bulrushes. By 1973 the Lieps lost about ninety per cent of its reeds in a die-back called Schilfsterben. By summer 1975 the island’s remains stood clear again, four square metres above the water when the level dropped forty centimetres. A dig in 1975 recovered many pieces of pottery from the old settlement. Soon after, wind and waves wore the last traces away. Today nothing of the island can be seen from the shore. The water hides the spot where people once lived and worked for centuries.