Contiomagus
Contiomagus was a Gallo-Roman vicus located at today's lease (city of Dillingen / Saar ) . Contiomagus belonged to the Gallic province of Belgica .
Emergence
Contiomagus arose during the settlement phase after the conquest of Gaul by Gaius Julius Caesar from 58 to 51 BC. The location on the intersecting highways Trier – Strasbourg and Metz – Mainz favored the development of Contiomagus as well as a ford through the Saar and the proximity to the valleys of Prims and Nied . Coin finds indicate a 10 BC Gallo-Roman settlement beginning in BC and lasting 200 years .
The route of the Roman road from Metz to Mainz ran through the Niedtal and crossed the Saar at Contiomagus, in order to continue along the banks of the Prims and Theel via Lebach and Tholey to the Rhine . In 244 AD, the Saar crossing was improved by building a wooden bridge at Contiomagus. The road from Trier to Strasbourg split at Zerf . The southern route met the Saar Valley near Beckingen and went via Contiomagus and Saarbrücken to Strasbourg, while the northern route ran via Tholey and Schwarzenacker , and then reunited with the Saar Valley route. Both routes were connected to one another via the cross-connections Contiomagus-Tholey and Saarbrücken-Schwarzenacker.
Local development
The development was mainly based on trade. According to the testimony of Ausonius , a court official of Emperor Valentinian , there was merchant shipping on the Saar (Saravus). The main locations were near the bridges in Sarrebourg (pons Saravi), Saarbrücken (vicus Saravus) and leases (Contiomagus). In the 3rd century Contiomagus was threatened by the Germans and destroyed in 275/276 by the Franks during the beginning of the migration of the peoples . A fort was built during the reconstruction .
In the area around today's city of Dillingen there were already settlements of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri (around the Limberg , on the Prims and at the mouth of the Nied) when the Romans arrived . A sword find from the late La Tène period was made in 1967 in leases (Leipziger Ring).
In the years 58–51 BC Caesar's troops conquered the area on the Saar. The region lay in the border area between the Celtic tribes of the Treveri and the Mediomatrics . The names of the carvings on the Pachten seat stones (presumably a cult theater) also suggest that both tribes settled in the Pachten area.
In the Roman Empire, the Treverer area belonged to the province of Belgica prima with leases with the provincial capital Colonia Augusta Treverorum (Trier). The Treveri gradually adopted the Roman culture (Gallo-Roman culture). The Celtic language held its ground in the country until the 4th century AD. The religion mixed syncretistically with the Roman gods ( Interpretatio Romana ). The custom of erecting consecration stones, mostly votive stones, for the gods was widespread. Two such stones have been preserved from leases: the Contiomagus stone and the Merkur stone. The latter was found in 1847 while plowing a swampy spot in the “night pasture” for the first time. The inscription on the white sandstone (39 × 23 × 10 cm / letter height: 3 cm) reads:
DEO MERCVRIO C
OLONI CRVTISIO
NES FERVNT DE
SVO PER THEN
VM GIAMILLVM
Translation: "The colonies (ie" tenants ") of the Crutisio had this consecration stone set for the god Mercury by Dannus Giamillus." In the immediate vicinity lay the shards of urns, jugs and small consecration vessels. Colons are peasants who depend on a landlord. From this it follows that a manor must have existed in leases or in the immediate vicinity at the time of the consecration of the stone. The discovery of the consecration stone led to the assumption that the ancient name of the current lease was "Crutisio". This assumption was refuted by the discovery of the Contiomagus stone.
The Contiomagus stone was found during excavation work on October 22, 1955. The consecration stone was used as the foundation stone of a corner tower of the Contiomagus fort. The upper part of the holy stone made of gray-yellow sandstone (66 × 45 × 28 cm / height of the inscribed part: 46 cm) is broken off and missing. The relief piece that still exists presumably represents a seated goddess who is dressed in a tunic with heavy folds. To the right of the goddess is a small animal (perhaps a dog) that is looking at the viewer. The inscription, the letters of which are about 4 cm high, reads:
. O D.
. T. PRITONAE. DI
VINAE. SIVE. CA. .
IONI. PER . SALVTE
VICANORUM. CONTI
OMAGI. ENSIVE
TINIUS. MODESTUS
F. C. V. S.
One possible translation could be: "The divine Pritona or Ca ... ioni for the salvation of the inhabitants of Contiomagus Tertinius Modestus." Pritona can be interpreted as a river goddess or trade goddess.
The first and last lines of the dedicatory inscription are written in abbreviations and are badly weathered. When the find was temporarily stored in Saarbrücken, it was misused by craftsmen out of ignorance as a base for the processing of building material and suffered further damage as a result. As a result, the interpretation of the first and last lines is controversial in science to this day.
The name of the place, "Contiomagus", is made up of the Celtic word component "magus" (market) and the short form "Contio" for Condate / Confluentes (confluence). The confluence of the Prims and the Saar in the immediate vicinity of Contiomagus must be assumed as the “confluence”. The town of Konz (Contionacum) at the confluence of the Saar and the Moselle has a similar name.
Another testimony to the veneration of Mercury in leases is the small sculpture of the god Mercury from the turn of the century from the 2nd to the 3rd century, which was found in 1961 when a planting hole was excavated. Statuettes of other Roman and Egyptian gods were also found . The following centuries meant a phase of prosperity for leases, which is expressed in the size of the village and the number of excavation finds, especially in the burial ground.
The existence of a Roman settlement was known long before archaeological research into the history of leasing was undertaken. For example, there is an entry in the history of Lorraine (Histoire de Lorraine) for the Augustinian monk Dom Calmet in 1757. In the following century, the Saarlouis judiciary and notary Nicolas Bernard Motte (Manuscrit tiré des archives même de Sarrelouis et de ses environs) examined Roman leases.
The most intensive and fundamental research on this epoch is thanks to Philipp Schmitt (1850), who was a pastor in Dillingen from 1833 to 1848 (The Saarlouis district and its immediate surroundings under the Romans and Celts). During the great drought of 1842, he was able to trace numerous foundations of the ancient leasehold buildings in the meadows of the former farming village through little vegetation. Schmitt assumed a population of approx. 2000 people for the Gallo-Roman leasing. In 1865 Georg Balzer was able to interpret some of the foundation finds made by Schmitt as a Roman fort.
In the years 1891 and 1935 systematic excavations of the Landesmuseum Trier took place in leases. An extensive Roman civilian settlement was discovered between today's railway systems in the east and in the Wilhelmstrasse area. A Franconian burial district was also found near the medieval village church, which is probably laid out near a late Roman burial site.
The Roman burial ground in Margarethenstrasse was discovered by chance in 1950 and excavated by the Saarland Conservatory until the 1960s. More than 500 graves with three to 14 grave goods each were discovered. Of particular importance are the terracotta figures , which probably all come from children's graves and are interpreted as toys.
During the construction work in the wake of the canalization of the Saar, the remains of a Roman road were discovered in the summer of 1985, which led from the Saar to the fort and the settlement and can be dated to the 2nd century AD.
From the 3rd century onwards, the peace of the Gallo-Roman vicus was severely disturbed by incursions by the Teutons. Leases were almost razed to the ground during the invasion of the Franks 275/276. Burning layers and buried coin treasures, which the Gallo-Roman population brought to safety in the ground, point to this troubled epoch. One such treasure with 4000 coins, believed to date from the middle of the 3rd century, was found in 1858. In the last third of the 3rd century, the building of a Roman fort brought the place to life, which is documented by numerous finds. The fort was 134 m wide in east-west direction and 152 m long. The walls were 2.9 meters thick. At all 4 corners there were square towers (6.73 m) with a wall thickness of 2.25 m. In the years 1961–63 and 1965 a temple complex with a cella and colonnade was found inside the fort (south-east corner) .
One suspects a possible place of worship in the area of today's parish church of St. Maximinus . At the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th century the fort was destroyed. The sandstone blocks found in the fort foundations between 1961 and 1963, with a length of up to 2.6 m and large name inscriptions, are interpreted by the researchers as the seat stones of a small cult theater from the 2nd half of the 2nd century, which was part of a temple complex.
Outside the Roman vicus, in the area of today's road between Dillingen and Beckingen, the old B 51, a larger Roman complex of a villa with five buildings on Hylborn was excavated based on discoveries by Philipp Schmitt in the 1970s. The complex was built in 90 BC. Begun in Celtic times and expanded to 234 AD. The largest building has a length of 68 m. Some of the rooms in the building have hypocaust heating and black and white mosaic floors, which are decorated with right and left turning swastikas. The luxurious building equipment also included a wooden water pipe, the hollowed-out oak trunks of which were connected with iron sleeves and supplied the system with fresh spring water according to the pressure pipe principle. Dendrochronologically , the aqueduct could be dated to the year 163 AD.
Finds such as the Ursus stone, the tombstone of a three-year-old boy that was found in the old church speak for the presence of Christians in leases. The special meaning of the stone lies in the Christ monogram XP , which, contrary to the rest of the script, was carved into the stone, surrounded by two doves. Such stones are very rare in the country, as Christianity developed here later than in the urban settlements. The strange orientation of the Pachten church to the south-south-west-north-north-east, i.e. in the direction of the old Roman road, and the patronage of St. Maximinus , who died as Bishop of Trier in 346, indicate that there was already a Christian place of worship in Pachten in late antiquity was standing. When the later Romanesque church was laid down in 1891 in favor of a neo-Gothic church, graves from the Merovingian period also came to light. These Franconian-Merovingian tombs were enclosed with stones from Roman times. On the basis of other grave finds in the vicinity of today's Pachten Church, it can be assumed that Pachten did not lie idle for long, if at all, in the post-Roman period, but was settled again soon, at the latest since the 7th century.
Finds
Systematic investigations in the 20th century have unearthed over 560 graves as well as the remains of temples, theaters, villas and houses. They mostly date to the third and fourth centuries after Christ. Finds of glass, metal objects, remnants of colored plaster, heating and ceramics suggest wealth. During construction work on the Dillinger Hütte site in 2009, a grave was found that documents the change from a Celtic to a Roman way of life. The replica of the tombstone of a child with symbols attached to the church of St. Maximin in Pachten is evidence of the role of Christianity at that time. One of the 16 fort towers was rebuilt in 2009. Many finds are exhibited in the leases museum.
See also
- Museum leases
- Pachten Church of St. Maximinus
Footnotes
- ^ Alfons Kolling : The Roman town in Homburg-Schwarzenacker . Ed .: Foundation Roman Museum Homburg-Saarpfalz. Ermer Verlag, Homburg 1993, ISBN 3-924653-13-5 .
- ^ SR-online, Tour de Kultur 2002
- ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung of June 23, 2009
- ↑ St. Maximin
- ↑ Dillinger Zeitung April 24, 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 459 kB)
literature
- Edith Glansdorp: The cemetery “Margarethenstrasse” in Dillingen-Lachten . Habelt Verlag, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-7749-3360-X .
- Gertrud Schmidt: The Roman leasing, catalog for the exhibition . Dillingen 1986, OCLC 633277709 .
- Aloys Lehnert: History of the city of Dillingen / Saar . Dillingen 1968.
- Maria Daniela Alecu, Peter Robert Franke: The Roman coin find of Dillingen leases . In: Report of the state preservation of monuments in Saarland, 16 . Saarbrücken 1969.
- Maria Alföldi: The “forger molds” for leases . In: Germania . tape 52 , 1974, pp. 426-447 .
- Georg Baltzer: Historical notes about the city of Saarlouis and its immediate surroundings . 1979, ISBN 3-921815-02-9 .
- H. Brunner: An Egyptian statuette from leases . In: Report of the state preservation of monuments in Saarland, 11 . 1964, p. 59-62 .
- Alfons Kolling: Saravus-Flumen, Romanism in Saarland . In: The Romans on the Moselle and Saar . Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-8053-0767-5 , p. 53-67 .
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 21 '21.5 " N , 6 ° 42' 27.3" E