Wellberg Castle (Pfungstadt)

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Wellberg Castle
Castle stable of the departed moth with rampart and mound view directly from the newly discovered outer bailey

Castle stable of the departed moth with rampart and mound
view directly from the newly discovered outer bailey

Alternative name (s): Wildhügl
Creation time : 10th to 11th centuries
Castle type : Niederungsburg, moth
Conservation status: Burgstall
Standing position : unknown
Place: Pfungstadt
Geographical location 49 ° 47 '3.3 "  N , 8 ° 34' 27.5"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 47 '3.3 "  N , 8 ° 34' 27.5"  E
Wellberg Castle (Hesse)
Wellberg Castle

The castle Wellberg is an Outbound high medieval motte (moth) about 2.5 kilometers southwest of Pfungstadt and southeast of the district Hahn and east of the nearby A67 in the western part of the district Darmstadt-Dieburg , southwest of the city of Darmstadt in Hesse .

location

Like the hamlet hill, the castle was located on the eastern edge of an earlier (paleo) Neckar loop . It is located on the southern alluvial cone edge of the Modau flowing past to the north on parcel land of the city of Pfungstadt. The old district name was the win "the old night forest". A few dozen meters south is the Wellborngraben, which may have given the hill its name. A spring is said to have been there in the past .

description

The castle stable from the south, in the area of ​​the right edge of the picture (southeast), is the beginning of the outer bailey found in 2013

The construction of the castle was previously assigned to the 10th to 11th centuries, but the excavations and investigations from 2013 seem to be in the 12th and 13th centuries. Since no documentary evidence has been found until the present, the original name of the castle is not known. Two construction periods could be identified during excavations in 1936 and in 1973 aerial photographs revealed seven two meter wide and one meter deep ring trenches , the edges of which are three to four meters apart. This leads to the conclusion that it was a moth fastened with palisades , enclosed by several ditches and walls.

Shot from the southwest. The rampart and elevation for the moth are clearly visible. On the left edge of the picture (west) is the area of ​​the excavation from 1974.

The Burgstall still shows an approximately 6 meter high, irregularly built hill with a base diameter of approximately 50 meters, actually without a recognizable outer bailey . However, an excavation campaign carried out in the summer of 2013 confirmed a bailey that had been found shortly beforehand through aerial photographs and showed stone architecture in the bailey as well as ceramic, metal and bone finds and now allows a more precise, but now later, dating to the High Middle Ages . The findings would fit the structure of moths as they are e.g. B. in the nearby hamlet , the excavated castle stables Ketzelburg in Haibach in the Spessart or at the Moth Wachenbuchen are characteristic. The simple structure such as B. in the Drusenküppel or in the Gewanneküppel , which was previously accepted for the Wellberg, is thus obsolete.

Traces of stone buildings in the actual castle hill have not yet been found, which may mean that the Motte only owned a tower-like wooden building and was abandoned early. The wall recognizable in the pictures is not exactly circular, but has polygonal features. Documentary evidence of the owner and the exact time is not known to this day.

Excavation campaign 2013

Based on aerial photographs from previous years, an excavation campaign was approved in 2013 to investigate structures in the south-eastern area of ​​the castle. A longitudinal section coming from the south-east was made up to the Burgstall and an L-shaped area in the middle of the section was additionally examined. A suspected outer bailey could be confirmed. The only shallow, maximally 60 cm to 1 m deep moats were confirmed. Several posts, some of which were still in good condition, pointed to swampy terrain and possible bridges. Stone finds suggest masonry buildings in the outer bailey area.

  • Cut from SO

  • Example of one of the shallow moats

  • Excavated post from the outer bailey area

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 2nd Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 . P. 530.
  • Georg Dehio : Hessen II, p. 669.
  • Thomas Maurer: "A hill apparently thrown up by art." Excavations on the high medieval low castle Wellberg near Pfungstadt, district of Darmstadt-Dieburg. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2013. Yearbook for archeology and palaeontology in Hessen. Theiss, Darmstadt 2014, ISBN 978-3-8062-2984-4 , pp. 143-148.
  • Thomas Steinmetz: Early low castles in southern Hesse and adjacent areas. Ober-Kainsbach 1989, p. 12.
  • Peter and Marion Sattler: Castles and Palaces in the Odenwald , Verlag Edition Diesbach, Weinheim 2004

Web links

Commons : Burg Wellberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Wellberg: The first excavation campaign in August / September 2013 on terraplana.de
  2. ↑ cf. Spessart Project - The Ketzelburg in Haibach ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.spessartprojekt.de
  3. ↑ The mound was not allowed to be cut in the 2013 investigations.
  4. ↑ terraplana is a registered association: (quote from the statutes) The purpose of the society is to promote the interests of archeology and archaeological preservation as well as scientific research into archaeological issues in the field of work. The work area includes the district of Groß-Gerau as well as the western part of the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg with Alsbach-Hähnlein , Bickenbach / Bergstrasse, Seeheim-Jugenheim , Pfungstadt , Darmstadt , Griesheim , Weiterstadt , Erzhausen - located in the Rhine valley .