Warthenberg Castle

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Warthenberg castle ruins - neck ditch and keep from the west

The Castle Mountain Warta ( French Château de Warta Mountain ) is the ruin of an Alsatian Höhenburg just one kilometer west and above Ernolsheim-lès-Saverne in the Bas-Rhin .

The castle is located in flat promontory on the stave beat rock ( French Rocher du stave blow ), a rock formation from red sandstone in the Northern Vosges . This is located at an altitude of 402 m on the Frohnberg at the exit of the southern Zinsel into the Upper Rhine Plain .

On the Daubenschlagfelsen, the foundation walls of the large Romanesque spur castle from the 12th century have been excavated since 1979 , which was mentioned in a document in 1158 and built by Count Hugo VIII von Dagsburg to control the Neuweiler Abbey . The castle, which apparently remained unfinished, was given up in the 13th century in favor of Herrenstein Castle and its masonry was removed for stone extraction.

Behind a twelve-meter-wide neck ditch rose a 3.80-meter-thick shield wall made of humpback ashlars , on which a large square keep (floor area 11 × 11 meters) leaned in the middle . The 190 meters long and up to 50 meters wide castle was divided by a transverse wall, with each part of the castle having a residential building and a filter cistern . The actual palace stood behind the transverse wall, with the castle chapel attached at right angles to the eastern edge of the rock . The important Romanesque architectural sculpture - window and wall columns with cube capitals , figural reliefs , friezes  - was exhibited in Strasbourg in 1990 and in 1992/1993 in the Palatinate History Museum in Speyer . The finds are now in the Rohan Castle in Saverne .

The exposed remains of the wall of the castle, which is historically significant in terms of architecture, have been secured by the “Pro Daubenschlag” association since 1986 and made accessible to visitors. An archaeological nature trail connects the Daubenschlagfelsen with the medieval stone quarries on the Frohnberg, the Celtic oppidum Heidenstadt and the Michelsberg . The ruin is since 1994 as a monument historique under monument protection .

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The castles of Alsace - architecture and history. Volume 1: The beginnings of castle building in Alsace (until 1200) . Published by the Alemannic Institute Freiburg i. Br., Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-422-07439-2 , pp. 248–255.
  • Bernard Haegel, René Kill: Le château fort de Warthenberg (Daubenschlagfelsen). Société d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Saverne et Environs, Saverne 1991, ISSN  0245-8411 .
  • Bernard Haegel, René Kill: Warthenberg Castle-Daubenschlagfelsen. In: Meinrad Maria Grewenig, Bernadette Schnitzler, Andrea Nisters (eds.): Life in the Middle Ages. 30 years of medieval archeology in Alsace. (Catalog for the exhibition from October 25, 1992 to May 2, 1993). Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer 1992, ISBN 3-980-22621-2 , pp. 283–286, 323.
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d′Alsace. Dictionnaire d′histoire et d′architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , p. 335.
  • Bernhard Metz: Daubenschlagfels, Warthenberg, Herrenstein, Wadenberg. In: Études Médiévales. Vol. 1, 1983, pp. 75-90.

Web links

Commons : Daubenschlagfelsen-Warthenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 47 '37.2 "  N , 7 ° 22' 32.9"  E