Archsum Castle
| Archsum Castle | |
|---|---|
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg |
| Conservation status: | departed |
| Place: | Archsum |
The Archsum Castle was a demarcated complex that had been located near Archsum on the North Frisian island of Sylt since the middle or second half of the 1st century BC . The last remains were removed during work in 1860. The Archsum Castle originally served as a place of worship.
Structure of the plant
In addition to a ring wall made of sod packings, the Archsum Castle had an interior development that varied depending on the phase. The outer diameter of the plant was 80 m.
1st phase
In a first phase, 4 - 5 m long and 3 m wide, mostly two-aisled, lightweight wattle-walled huts were built on the earth wall. Each had its own fireplace, but it was never used. Due to their construction and the inadequate heating facilities, the buildings were not suitable as living space under the climatic conditions of the time. This is also indicated by the fact that excavations did not find the usual waste. These either never seemed to have arisen or were meticulously removed. There were no indications of a longer stay or economic activity in the huts.
2nd phase
In this phase the ring wall of Archsum Castle was reinforced for the first time. In addition, huts made of sand sod were built in the enclosed area instead of the wattle wall huts of the 1st phase. The fireplaces were made larger, but remained unused.
3rd phase
In the third phase, the interior construction is completely missing. Instead, there were three up to 2.40 m deep shafts and 18 so-called stone pits inside. No shaft had supports. The archaeologists got the impression that the shafts had been backfilled immediately after their completion. They concluded this from the fact that no ceramics or bones typical of structures of this type were found inside. Two shafts were covered by roofs made of wooden billets, the third had a multilayered layer of boulders as a cover. Inside one of the roofed shafts was a vertical, 30 cm thick pile. All 18 pits were filled with rubble the size of a fist or head.
In the north, the curtain wall has a one meter wide passage supported by wood, sod and stones, which merges into a megalithic crawl passage . While the geographical axis through the center of the earthwork is aligned exactly to the north, that of the entrance deviates from this by 7 °. Neither crawl speed nor entrance show signs of use.
Found objects
Inside the excavations almost exclusively storage containers and small vessels were found. Equipment for household use or from handicrafts and agriculture was completely missing. Even animal bones are only found in a few places. A settlement layer is missing.
Use of the facility
Archaeologists suspect that the Archsum Castle was used to store liquids in vessels in pseudo-buildings, which were later offered as libations in covered shafts and stone-filled pits. The short service life of the system is surprising. While the earthworks were being abandoned, large farms were built around it.
literature
- Germanic History of Religions Sources and Source Problems, ed. by Heinrich Beck, Detlex Ellmers, Kurt Schier; de Gruyter Verlag,