Verden old castle
The Alte Burg Verden was an early medieval hill fort in Verden in Lower Saxony . It was on a hill above the Aller, directly on the edge of the Geesthang to the Allerniederung. The approximately 2.4 hectare fortification was built in the time of 10/11. Used in the 19th century and fell into desolation before the 14th century . Historical research brings the ramparts into connection with Charlemagne .
description
The fortification was about one kilometer southeast of the town center on a moraine hill called Burgberg . The parcel there is called Alte Burg . The slightly oval-shaped system had a diameter of about 215 × 170 meters. Its western and northern sides were protected by a semicircular wall 16 meters wide and about four meters high. It consisted of a front with turf , a clay core and a fill of gravel as well as a wall of sod . To the outside, a seven-meter-wide berm and a 14-meter-wide and four-meter-deep pointed ditch were in front. According to current estimates, up to 20,000 m 3 of earth were moved when the wall and ditch were built . In the south and east of the complex, steep slopes up to 15 meters high and possibly artificially reworked offered natural protection. There are no indications of development within the ramparts or of the existence of a bailey .
history
No historical tradition is known about the purpose of the fortification and its builder. It was so striking in the landscape that it has been mentioned in sources since the early late Middle Ages . At the beginning of the 14th century, the now desolate castle was used as a landmark . In the book of statutes of the Verden St. Andreas-Stift , the remains of the complex are mentioned several times as the olde borch and once as the wal of the alden borch . In 1368 the place of the castle area is called antiquum castrum .
The fortification is first shown on a city map of Verden in 1728. According to the description, it was a ski jump called the Old Castle , the area of which is used for growing grain. Another representation can be found on a topographical survey of the land from 1770. In 1816, the wall was leveled to gain arable land. During the construction of the embankment for the Wunstorf – Bremen railway line in 1846, the eastern half of the wall was excavated. Today the fortification, which is located within a residential area, is no longer visible above ground. The moraine hill was largely excavated during the construction of the railway in the 19th century, so that the former terrain is now difficult to see. In 2006, an information board on the history of the fortifications was set up on the former castle site in the Burgberg street next to the children's playground there.
Excavations
In 1959 the pharmacists Detlef Schünemann and Wolfgang Schöttler as well as Albert Genrich from the State Museum Hanover carried out an excavation . Finds in a 40 cm thick cultural layer were around 300 ceramic shards from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages . They document a prehistoric settlement on the prominent site above the Aller. In an exposed waste pit inside the ramparts, fragments of vessels from the 6th and 7th centuries from the Saxon period were found. In the Spitz trench, at a depth of 3.4 meters, there was a square forged iron bolt with a socket, which could be a crossbow bolt from before 1100. Exposed wood could be dated to the year 1000 +/- 75 years using the radiocarbon method. A further excavation and construction observation in 1983 revealed indications of a two-phase structure of the Spitz trench.
Historical classification
Since the desolate castle site was mentioned in late medieval sources, the former function of the complex has been puzzled. It has structural similarities with the Esesfeld Castle in Schleswig-Holstein , built in 809 , which had a 10 meter wide plague wall. The excavator Detlef Schünemann saw a fortress built between the 8th and 10th centuries in the old castle Verden . It would have served to protect the population and provided space for around 1500 people. Schünemann suspected raids by Vikings and Normans who drove up the rivers in their boats as the reason for their establishment . Schünemann did not use the waste pit with ceramic material from the 6th to 7th centuries to date the complex, but explained it with the possible existence of a Saxon homestead on the site.
Historical research suggests that the complex was a military station owned by Charlemagne, who is said to have stayed in Verden in 782 at the blood court in Verden and during a notarization on August 12, 810. In addition, the annals of the Franconian Empire report a "castrum" on the Aller, which flows into the Weser nearby . The exact location is not certain, as part of the research localizes the "castrum" described near the Verden Cathedral .
literature
- Detlef Schünemann: The "Old Castle" in Verden - an early historical fortification. In: Die Kunde NF 11, 1960, pp. 93–116.
Web links
- Entry by Michaela Jansen about Alte Burg, Verden in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
Coordinates: 52 ° 54 ′ 36 " N , 9 ° 14 ′ 22.9" E
Individual evidence
- ↑ Plaques remind of lost castles. Verden district, April 28, 2006, accessed March 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Signs for the old castle and the Domburg in Verden. Verden district , accessed on March 30, 2020 .