Eislingen-Salach fort

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Eislingen-Salach fort
limes Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, rear fort
Dating (occupancy) hadrianic,
around AD 125 to around AD 159
Type Cohort fort
unit unknown auxiliary force unit
size approx. 140 × 164 × 164 × 140 × 156 m (= approx. 2.2 ha)
Construction Wood earth
State of preservation ground monument visible in aerial photographs
place Eislingen / Fils / Salach
Geographical location 48 ° 41 '38.4 "  N , 9 ° 43' 42.2"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 41 '38.4 "  N , 9 ° 43' 42.2"  E hf
Location of the fort on the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes

The Eislingen-Salach fort was an auxiliary Roman fort . The former military camp is located about 1.7 kilometers east of Eislingen / Fils on the border to Salach in the district of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg ( Germany ).

location

The former Eislingen-Salach fort is located below the agricultural land in the "Steiniger Esch" area around 1.7 kilometers east of Eislingen on the border with Salach north over the Fils . A large part of the fort area is to the northeast of Landesstraße 1219 (Salacher Straße / Eislinger Straße), which connects Eislingen with Salach, just before the “Steiniger Esch” industrial area of ​​Salach. The area is built over in its southern corner by the L 1219 and by high-rise buildings on parcel 1104/1 of the Salach municipality.

In ancient times , the Filstal was under the control of the Roman Empire . The fort was in front of the Alblimes and was located in the area that was probably not yet occupied at the time and was probably part of a series of earth fortifications along the central Neckar.

The fort probably also marked the border between the Roman provinces of Raetia and Germania superior , the exact north-south course of which in the Eislingen area is unknown. So far it is also unknown which province it belonged to, which unit was there and what its Latin name was.

A Roman road forks near Eislingen towards Heidenheim and towards Urspring.

Research history

Digitally managed plan with the structural structures of the enclosure ditch, south gate and horreum recognizable in the aerial photo.

In 1951, during sewer work on the lower Stuttgarter Strasse near the former Scheller textile machine factory in Eislingen, a Roman road was found at a depth of around 1.70 meters; this is considered evidence of a connecting road to Urspring .

In 1966, on an aerial photograph taken by aerial photo archaeologist Albrecht Brugger from Stuttgart-Echterdingen, the course of the surrounding ditch of a previously unknown Roman fort was discovered in the grain vegetation. It turned out that almost the entire east corner of the fort between the south corner tower and the north-east gate had already been destroyed by the factory halls of the tool and mechanical engineering company Schaal built in 1961. No findings were found during the construction of this factory building. After 1966, the factory buildings were expanded on their western flank on a previous open space, which again resulted in the loss of the fort's substance. The entire building complex of the Schaal company was demolished after their move in 2015 and replaced by a parking lot and a new commercial building by 2016.

A first, very selective archaeological investigation took place in December 1967. At that time, a search cut was made through the trench in the immediate vicinity of the northeast gate. In November 1969 workers cut through the trench area at the northeast gate while laying a line for the Baden-Württemberg state water supply. A more detailed examination was not carried out for reasons of time, but a superficial recording of the findings was made. The aerial archaeologist Otto Braasch , who sees it as his task to continue to explore well-known monuments in the ground, was able to prove numerous wooden interior structures and a massive fence with gate and intermediate towers during a prospecting flight in 1989.

A route planned in 2008 for the north-west bypass around Salach, which is to be built partly on the Eislinger mark, touches the ground monument "Roman fort". A backup is still pending.

Building history

Dietwulf Baatz suspects that the Eislingen-Salach fort was built at the time of Emperor Hadrian (117–138), probably around 125 AD, at the same time as the new Limes road, which was pushed further north. This now ran from Köngen through the Filstal via Eislingen-Salach to Heidenheim .

Due to its geographical location, it undoubtedly belongs to the early period of the Roman occupation of the central Neckarland and, according to Dieter Planck, probably formed in the first half of the 2nd century the replacement for the earlier demarcation of the Lautertal-Limes (the so-called sibyl trail), which between Köngen ( Grinario ) and Donnstetten ( Clarenna ) connected the Neckar with the Alblimes . It was probably the connection with the eastern part of the Alblimes after the dissolution of the garrisons Dornstetten, Urspring and Heidenheim.

The fort probably only existed until the Limes was moved from the Filstal to the Remstal around 159 AD, and was possibly replaced by the Schirenhof fort .

Fort

According to the findings from the smaller investigations and the analysis of aerial photographs, Eislingen-Salach was a pure wood-earth fort with an almost rectangular floor plan that was never built in stone. This speaks for a relatively short useful life. The inner area of ​​the approximately 140 × 164 × 164 × 140 × 156 meter large facility probably comprised 2.20 hectares, which is the regular storage size for a cohort unknown in this case . A singular, circumferential pointed ditch is proven on all four sides, which, like the wall built as a wood-earth construction, was rounded at the four corners (playing card shape). Four gates on each side gave access to the fort.

The Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wuerttemberg was in 1967 to create a search interface along the dirt road in the parcel in 1103, the cross runs from north to south through the camp area and opens at the site of the former southern corner tower in the connecting road L 1219 of Eislingen to Salach. Since the dirt road ran diagonally across the northeast ditch, the search cut also penetrated the trench at an acute angle. So its exact width could not be determined with certainty. Since the cut was made almost directly at the gate there, the measured trench depth of 1.30 meters below the top of the terrain at that time is not necessarily an example of its normal depth. The trench head had probably been cut at that time, because there is evidence that in the south, west and north the defensive trench exposed in front of the gates. The Spitz trench was sunk into the gravel of the Fils . Its humus filling was very gravelly interspersed, especially on the south side of the cut. From the backfilling at the level of the trench bottom, the only piece found in this investigation was the neck fragment of a one-handled jug. This ceramic piece could be dated to the end of the 1st century AD, which enabled a chronology of the backfill layers, albeit a very limited one. The construction supervision carried out in 1969 took place again on the north-eastern front on the long side near the gate. This time it was possible to measure the circumferential trench with a still existing width of six meters. It was preserved in this area between 1.20 and 1.40 meters deep. Since this cut was most likely made near the head of the trench, the normal trench depth could not be determined this time either.

Behind the southwest gate, a wooden storage building ( Horreum ) is documented in the aerial photo. In 1969, only the sterile clay in this area could be observed in a very limited section inside the camp under a barely 0.20 meter thick humus cover. A cultural layer was no longer recognizable. This suggests that the warehouse area was exposed to advanced erosion. Since hardly any finds have been recovered so far, it is difficult to determine the time of this garrison site and can only be guessed at.

Monument protection and remains

The ground monument Kastell Eislingen-Salach is protected as a registered cultural monument within the meaning of the Monument Protection Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities. The sparse finds are in the holdings of the Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart.

literature

  • Dietwulf Baatz : The Roman Limes. Archaeological excursions between the Rhine and the Danube . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1993.
  • Otto Braasch : Flight observations at the Eislingen camp, Göppingen district . In: Archaeological excavations in Baden-Württemberg . 1989, pp. 361-389, Figs. 263-269.
  • Eislingen . In: Philipp Filtzinger , Dieter Planck and Bernhard Cämmerer (eds.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg . Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1976, p. 258.
  • Dieter Planck : A new Roman camp near Eislingen, district of Göppingen . In: Find reports from Baden-Württemberg. Volume 1 . 1974, pp. 527-532.
  • Eislingen (GP) fort . In: Dieter Planck (Ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg . Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1555-3 , pp. 70f.
  • Ludwig Wamser : Motor sailors and archeology. Weissenburg glider club serving local research . 1977.

Remarks

  1. In the excavation section, the heavily compacted gravel and sand fill and the ditch (fossa) were clearly visible.
  2. According to other information, the fort could also have been built in the Vespasian period around 83/85 AD.

Individual evidence

  1. See Planck 1974, p. 532.
  2. Walter Ziegler : The district of Göppingen . Theiss, Stuttgart, Aalen 1985, p. 78.
  3. ^ A b Dieter Planck : A new Roman camp near Eislingen, district of Göppingen . In: Find reports from Baden-Württemberg. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 527-532; here: p. 527.
  4. a b c Dieter Planck : A new Roman camp near Eislingen, district Göppingen . In: Find reports from Baden-Württemberg. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 527-532; here: p. 530.
  5. Gemeindeverwaltungsverband Eislingen - Ottenbach - Salach: 2nd change to the land use plan on the Eislingen, Ottenbach and Salach markings ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eislingen.de 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. . Eislingen / Fils 2008, p. 39 and Fig. Salach north-west bypass on p. 40.
  6. See Baatz 1993, p. 73.
  7. See Baatz 1993, p. 214.
  8. See Baatz 1993, p. 252.
  9. Cf. Helmut Weimert: Civil and military structures in the north-west of the Roman province of Raetia: 3rd Heidenheim Archeology Colloquium on October 9 and 10, 1987 . 1988, p. 82.