Castle hill settlement in Schwarzenbach

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Celtic open-air museum on Burgberg

The hill settlement Burg in Schwarzenbach is located on the eastern edge of the Bucklige Welt . The settlement was a Celtic oppidum on the castle hill of the market town of Schwarzenbach in Lower Austria . It was one of the centers of iron extraction in the Latène period (480 BC until the birth of Christ), which was probably closely connected with the settlements of the same time in Velem-Szentvid and Sopron-Várhely (both in Hungary ).

Location and archaeological evidence

Northern wall with moat

The still recognizable fortification is located east of Schwarzenbach on the high plateau of a mountain spur, called "castle", and has a size of 500 × 300 m. With this inner area of ​​around 15 hectares, it was one of the largest Celtic ramparts in what is now Austria . The fortifications with a height of up to 7 m are still clearly visible on the flat north and west sides. They are no longer so well preserved on the steeper flanks in the east and south. The northern part of the wall has a ditch in front of it and meets the eastern part to form a pincer gate .

Since the 1920s, objects found on the surface have been collected and published in this area. The facility has been the subject of ongoing interdisciplinary research by the University of Vienna since 1992 . The first stratigraphic excavations were carried out in the wall area by Otto H. Urban and Wolfgang Neubauer and provided evidence of a post slit wall dating from the Latin Age , which had been repaired twice. Part of the wall, a wooden box made of oak logs with a quarry stone wall at the front and support posts, could be detected. A part of the fortifications was reconstructed on site based on this model.

Systematic excavations and geophysical measurements have been carried out indoors since 1996 . This made it possible to prove that the system had been in use since the Neolithic . The intensive settlement began at the end of the early to the late Bronze Age (from around 1600 to 800 BC). No artifacts could be found for the older Iron Age ( Hallstatt period , 800 to 450 BC) , so that continued use can only be expected from the middle Latène period (280 to 190 BC).

The development within the wall dates from the Junglatène period. In the center remains of log buildings were uncovered, on the western slope a larger building measuring 9 × 5.4 m. Since the foundation of this building was sunk on the slope side, a basement and an upper floor would be conceivable. A corresponding reconstruction can be seen in the open-air museum.

From 2004 to 2008, excavations took place inside the pincer gate in the northwest corner of the wall. A destroyed wall box with quarry stone filling was discovered, which later served as the foundation for a farm building. In this, archaeologists iron hooks and brackets, one found wire fibula fragment and tools (various knives, a file, a small forge tongs), slag and remains of a chimney , which suggests a blacksmith shop.

A coin find with five small silver coins of the Velem type and a Boischen gold stater comes from the most recent period of settlement . Many Celtic coins ended up in private collections, especially unspecified tetradrachms and small silver coins. Because of its small size , the fragment of a stippled plate did not allow any conclusion about its use. An (amulet) ring as well as strap fittings and (belt) hooks, which indicate military use, also originate from this settlement phase.

A single children's grave at the highest point of the plateau - where the observation tower stands today - dates from the migration period and proves that the fortifications were temporarily used, even if apparently no longer for settlement purposes.

Celtic open air museum

Clay oven and storage container

The Celtic ramparts are intensively marketed for tourism by the market town. For this purpose, a museum tower was built at the highest point of the ramparts in 1998/99 and an open-air museum , for which several buildings were reconstructed, officially opened in 2005. The scientific management of the construction was in the hands of Wolfgang Lobisser, whereby special emphasis was placed on the reconstruction of late Iron Age buildings, taking into account the archaeological results. A Celtic festival lasting several days has been held there every year at the summer solstice since 1998, and events to convey science and culture are held in the area at regular intervals. Two more buildings were erected in 2018/19.

legend

Hans Paul Schad'n wrote in 1938 that, according to an old Schwarzenbach legend, Anchenstein Castle stood on the summit of the Burgberg . The misunderstanding that this Slovenian castle should have stood on Schwarzenbacher Burgberg arose because Schwarzenbach Castle and Anchenstein Castle were mentioned in one and the same document in the Peace of Pressburg in 1337 and the people at that time, due to the lower mobility, the Slovenian community Cirkulane , in which Anchenstein Castle is located, did not know. The remains of the Celtic ramparts have always been seen on the castle hill and probably did not know in the late Middle Ages that these were the remains of a Celtic city. These connections were explained by the legend “Hie Anchenstein - hie Suerzenbach!” , According to which Anchenstein Castle is said to have stood on Schwarzenbacher Burgberg.

literature

  • Klaus Löcker, Wolfgang Neubauer, Otto H. Urban, Christoph Wedekin: The fortified hill settlement "Burg" near Schwarzenbach. In: Archäologie Österreichs  3/2, 1992, pp. 43–50.
  • Otto H. Urban: A Celtic bronze depot with amulet ring from Schwarzenbach near Wiener Neustadt. In: Christa Tuczay , Ulrike Hirhager, Karin Lichtblau (eds.): Ir sult speak willekomen. Boundless medieval studies. Festschrift for Helmut Birkhan. Lang, Bern a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-906759-24-5 , pp. 798-807.
  • Wolfgang Lobisser, Wolfgang Neubauer: Reconstruction of the late La Tène fortifications on the hill settlement "Burg" near Schwarzenbach. In: Archaeologica Austriaca  81, 1997, pp. 211-219.
  • Martin Fera, Wolfgang Neubauer, Michael Doneus: Schwarzenbach. In: Find reports from Austria  47, 2008, pp. 553–555.
  • Wolfgang Neubauer: The prehistoric fortified settlement Schwarzenbach-Burg - A long term interdisciplinary research project of the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS). In: Via VIAS  2, 2008, pp. 6-10.
  • Martin Fera: Schwarzenbach "Burg", Austria. In: Susanne Sievers , Otto H. Urban, Peter C. Ramsl (Hrsg.): Lexicon for Celtic Archeology. L-Z. Announcements of the Prehistoric Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Vol. 73. Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7001-6765-5 , pp. 1686–1688.

Web links

Commons : Keltendorf Schwarzenbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Doris Pany, Karin Wilschke-Schrotta: Artificial cranial deformation in a Migration Period burial of Schwarzenbach, Lower Austria. In: Via VIAS  2, 2008, pp. 18-23.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Lobisser: Experimental work on house building in the younger Iron Age: The Schwarzenbach open-air museum in Lower Austria. In: Mamoun Fansa, Dirk Vorlauf (Ed.): Wood culture from prehistoric times to the future. Series of publications of the State Museum for Nature and Humans , Issue 47, Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3763-2 , pp. 87-104.
  3. ^ Sievers / Urban / Ramsl: Lexicon for Celtic Archeology. P. 1687.
  4. ↑ a b Marktgemeinde Schwarzenbach - Sights . (accessed on February 18, 2010)
  5. ↑ The City of Celts in the online newspaper of the University of Vienna (accessed on October 6, 2009).

Coordinates: 47 ° 38 '8.4 "  N , 16 ° 21' 44.6"  E