Gariannonum Castle
| Burgh Castle | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name |
a) Garrianonum , b) Gariannum , c) Gariannonum , d) Garianonum , f) Garriano |
| limes | Britain |
| section | Litus saxonicum |
| Dating (occupancy) | 3rd to 5th century AD |
| Type |
a) Reiterkastell, b) Fleet fort? |
| unit |
a) Equites Stablesiani Gariannonensis , b) Classis Britannica ? |
| size | approx. 2.4 ha |
| Construction | Stone construction |
| State of preservation | Square complex with rounded corners and protruding round towers, walls on the north, south and east sides are still well preserved, the west side has disappeared due to erosion |
| place | Burgh Castle |
| Geographical location | 52 ° 35 '8 " N , 1 ° 39' 19" E |
| Previous | Walton Castle (southwest) |
| Subsequently | Caister-on-Sea Fort (north) |
Gariannonum , also Garrianonum or Garriano , today Burgh Castle , a parish in the District of Great Yarmouth , County of Norfolk in England , was a Roman fort built in the late 3rd century AD . Together with the fort in Caister-on-Sea, it secured the confluence of three rivers on this section of the so-called Saxon coast . Throughout its long history, this was also the site of a Norman castle and perhaps an early Christian monastery. The area is accessible to visitors free of charge. The ruined fort is owned by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust and is under the protection of the English Heritage .
Surname
The ancient name Gariannonum originally comes from the naming of the river Gariennus (Yare) in the Geographica (2, 3, 4) of Ptolemy from the 2nd century AD. It probably has Celtic roots, meaning the "murmuring, gurgling river". The two previously known SK forts at the Yare estuary, Caister-on-Sea and Burgh Castle, probably formed a single organizational unit. It is possible that both were referred to as Gariannonum by the Romans . It is possible that the entry in the Notitia only refers to the neighboring Caister-on-Sea fort .
location
The facility is located on the east bank of the Waveney , six kilometers west of Great Yarmouth in the Broads National Park Conservation Area . The fort is not - like some others on the Saxon coast - mentioned in Strabons Geographica , which is not surprising, as it was only built in the 4th century AD. The Yare is referred to in this work as Gariennus , located between the Metaris Aestuarium (today Wash ) in the north and an unspecified headland in the south. From there, the crew had a good view to the west of the rivers Bure, Yare and Waveney and the marshland surrounding them. The camp stands on a plateau on the south bank of the estuary. In the west it drops off steeply towards Waveney. The neighboring fort of Caister-on-Sea is on the opposite side of the estuary. Breydon Water is all that remains of the estuary over which the fort once stood. The Yare was particularly important for shipping. Roman roads to and from Gariannonum are not known, it was probably only supplied by sea. The connection to other forts or settlements on the Saxon coast such as B. Venta Icenorum (Caistor by Norwich) was quickly and easily maintained by water, across the Yare rivers and across the Bure to Brampton . Whether a land connection to Caister-on-Sea existed is still disputed in research.
topography
The coastline around Burgh Castle has changed significantly over the past 2000 years due to sediment deposits . In Roman times the sea level was much higher there. The camp stood on the eastern edge of a wide confluence of three rivers, which covered all of today's marshland. The ships could dock right next to the fort and also sail on the three rivers. Breydon Water is all that remains of the former estuary today.
Research history
The first excavations were carried out in 1850 and 1855. Between 1958 and 1961 traces of some of the building's internal structures were discovered. Finds of Roman-Saxon ceramics and some glass vessels inside the fortress, as well as an outside burial ground from the 5th century, suggest a settlement in the immediate vicinity of the fort. In the years 1960-1961, Charles Green uncovered the remains of an early medieval wooden church in the southwest corner of the camp and a burial ground. The final report on his excavations was revised and edited by Stephen Johnson.
development
The fort was probably built between 260 and 270 AD. The earliest Roman coin and pottery finds date from the middle of the 3rd century. There is no evidence of Roman occupation prior to this period. Control and surveillance of the south-east coast of Britain was carried out at this time by a chain of watch towers or signal towers and forts. Most of these so-called " Saxon coastal forts " also served as naval bases. The first camps were probably commissioned during the reign of Emperor Probus. They were later integrated into the fortress chain of the Litus Saxonicum . When exactly or on whose occasion it is unknown, this may have happened on behalf of Carausius , who from 286 had further signal stations, forts and fortified harbors built there. The Roman army preferred to build these forts in exposed coastal areas, especially at estuaries. These also had connections with the military camps and fortified port cities on the Gallic mainland. Towards the end of the 3rd century a dense network of fortifications, some of them heavily fortified, stretched along the SE coast, which became increasingly important for the defense of the most economically developed regions of Britain due to the steadily increasing attacks by Franks and Saxons. In the county of Norfolk, three locations of Saxon coastal forts could be proven: Burgh-Castle, Caister-on-Sea and Brancaster in the northwest.
The function of the bearings has probably changed over time. Perhaps the coastal fort served as a base for the canal fleet to protect merchant shipping before the military district of the Saxon coast was established. The raids by Saxon and Frankish looters from the mainland increased steadily in the 4th century AD. The main task of the fort crews was now to repel the invaders. The forts were able to maintain constant contact with one another through a series of signaling stations. The locations of some of these stations have been localized by the archaeologists, but many have sunk into the sea due to the erosion of the coast over time. Together with the crew from Caister-on-Sea, the soldiers stationed in Burgh Castle monitored the entrance to the - at that time still navigable - rivers. For more than half a century, these raids have been repelled fairly successfully. In 367, however, there was a concerted attack by the Saxons, Picts and Scots on Britain. Most of the Saxon coastal forts had to be given up. The commander of the coastal regions ( comes maritimus tractus ) was ambushed and killed.
The coins and pottery shards found in Burgh Castle suggest that it was occupied until the beginning of the 5th century (407-408). The Roman military finally withdrew from Britain around this time. The fortress was still inhabited well into Anglo-Saxon times, as a cemetery south of the camp suggests. According to the chronicler Bede , it was given to the Irish missionary Fursa by Sigbert , King of the East Angles, in the middle of the 7th century . He probably founded a monastery and a fortified settlement there to protect the population from Franconian pirates. A Christian cemetery within the fort walls was occupied from the 7th to the 10th century. After the fall of the Anglo-Saxon monastery settlement, the square became deserted. In the course of the Norman invasion, it was given as a fief to a follower of William the Conqueror to build a small wood-earth fortification here. However, it seems to have only been occupied for a short time and - unlike most of the castles of the early Norman period - was not rebuilt or rebuilt in stone. Even a small pottery from this period seems to have only been in operation for a short time. The fort was acquired by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust in 1995. The property extends beyond the Roman walls and comprises a total of 37 hectares. This ensured that the remains of the Roman civilian settlement still buried in the ground were included in order to preserve them for future investigations.
Fort
The findings show that it was decided during the construction period to deviate from the original plan and to adapt the fort to the then newly developed fortress construction methods. Otherwise, its construction still corresponded to that of a camp from the 2nd century AD, particularly well recognizable by the rounded corners. The fort ground plan forms an irregular, NE-oriented, 205 × 100 meter rectangle and enclosed an area of approximately 2.4 hectares. The east side is 15 m shorter than the west side, which was approximately 205 m long. Large sections of the defensive wall and the still-preserved intermediate towers of the fort have been preserved almost to their original height, which is rare for Roman military buildings. Today, however, the outside of the wall has large gaps in places, as the stone material for other building projects has been cut off over the centuries. The inner area and the immediate vicinity of the camp are used for agriculture. Remains of buildings from Roman times or the early Middle Ages can no longer be seen there.
Enclosure
The width of the wall varies in some places. The west wall and parts of the north and south wall are 2.02 meters thick, while the more massive east wall, built on a slightly higher ground, is more than 3.02 meters wide. The latter is one of the best preserved sections. The walls of Garrianonum were much wider and higher than those of the mid-imperial forts. This was also a consequence of the increasingly defensive combat tactics of the Roman army. The walls have a base up to 3 meters wide, taper towards the top and stand completely free. A striking difference to the defenses of the 1st and 2nd centuries, which still had vertical earth ramps piled up on the back of the ramparts as battlements. Instead, there was probably a battlements at the top , which was accessible via wooden ladders or stone stairways. The western section of the wall was washed away by the Yare over the centuries and eventually collapsed on its entire front. Only their foundations could partly. can still be proven (excavations from 1958-1962). The ring wall , which is largely made of flint stone , still rises up to a height of 4.6 meters in some places. The brick bands on the outside typical of late antiquity . After 5 or 6 rows of flint facing, there are three rows of bricks at a distance of 1.5 to 1.8 meters. They ensure an additional strengthening of the outer facing on the cast mortar core made of mortared flint . In the south wall, however, there were only a few bricks.
Towers and gates
The researchers were particularly interested in the extremely solidly constructed, bastion-like intermediate towers: It also appears that the original plan included four internally attached, square corner towers according to the medieval standard. However, they were never completed or, after the plan was changed, probably canceled again. Then ten round towers, which stood at regular intervals to each other, were raised. They were placed in front of the wall by the Roman engineers and made it possible to fire concentrated defensive fire from both sides against attackers who had already penetrated as far as the walls. They were apparently only added after the wall had already reached a height of 2.1 meters. Its interior was not hollow, but completely filled with casting mortar. On their platforms, u. a. heavy slingshot guns are placed. It is unclear whether they were covered with a tiled roof or just reinforced with battlements. In the middle of the platform there is a recess, perhaps for attaching a wooden structure or a ballista . Today six of these towers are still preserved, one on the south wall, one on the southeast corner, two on the east wall, one on the northeast corner and one on the north wall. The towers on the north and south walls have slipped from their original positions due to erosion. There was a gate on each side. In contrast to most of the mid-imperial forts, they only had one passage and were probably just simple gates without special protective structures. In the middle of the east wall was the main gate ( porta praetoria ).
Interior development
Little is known about the buildings inside the fort. There were traces of extensive development consisting of a mix of wood and stone buildings that could be dated to the late first half of the 4th century. They were still arranged in the style of the middle imperial period. The buildings in the north-east and south-west sectors, on the other hand, had their backs attached to the fortress walls and probably dated from the 340s, but this seems to be the exception. Inside the south wall and at the northeast corner you can still see the sockets of their supporting beams. They were destroyed by fire soon after their completion. They either had low stone walls or were made entirely of wood. Nothing is known about their exact appearance and purpose. Heavily damaged floor levels, which overlap the youngest Roman layers, but are still Roman themselves, indicate that even in the last phase of occupancy, the courtyard will be built in a medieval style.
A deposit consisting of 11 glass vessels, bowls, bottles and mugs was also discovered in the camp. Presumably it came into the ground in the early 5th century when the fort was abandoned. The vessels are stylistically a mixture of Roman and Germanic forms and have a high processing quality. Other than that, coins, ceramics, tools, knives, animal bones, bricks and remains of building materials could still be found.
garrison
Up to 1000 infantrymen or 500 cavalrymen and their horses could be accommodated in the fort.
| Time position | Troop name | description |
| 3rd to 5th century AD |
Equites Stablesiani Gariannonensis ("the guard riders in Gariannonum") |
According to the Notitia Dignitatum , Gariannonor housed an equestrian unit of the Provincial Guard . Originally a troop from the Rhineland under the command of the Comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam . The fort itself was commanded by an officer in the rank of praepositus . For the presence of these cavalrymen in Burgh Castle the discovery of a late Roman helmet which was made around 350 AD speaks for itself. It was in very poor condition at the time it was found. Only fragments of the calotte, the nose guard and the browband were preserved. Initially, the excavators believed they only had an iron bucket in front of them. When it was finally recognized as a military helmet, its appearance could be approximately reconstructed using comparative pieces from the continent. It is one of the few surviving examples of a comb helmet . |
| 3rd to 5th century AD | Classis Britannica ("the British fleet") | Whether units of the canal fleet were permanently stationed in the port of the fort is not known, but due to the location of the fort it is very likely. |
Vicus and port
Aerial photographs and some soil surveys have shown that a larger civil settlement ( vicus ) must have stood east of the fort . Most of their buildings were made of wood. There are no remains to be seen today. The port is believed to have been to the west of the fort, in the area of today's Breydon Water.
literature
- Henry Swinden: The history and antiquities of the ancient burgh of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, 1772.
- H. Harrod: Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Norfolk archeology: a journal of archeology and local history. No. 5, 1859.
- Nic Fields: Rome's Saxon Shore Coastal Defenses of Roman Britain AD 250-500. (Fortress 56), Osprey, Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-1-84603-094-9 .
- Jürgen Oldenstein: Alzey Castle. Archaeological investigations in the late Roman camp and studies on border defense in the Mainz ducat . 2009, p. 261 ( hbz-nrw.de [PDF; 14.9 MB ] Habilitation thesis University Mainz 1992).
- David Gurney: Outposts of the Roman Empire, A guide to Norfolk's Roman forts at Burgh Castle, Caister-on-Sea and Brancaster, Norfolk Archaeological Trust, 2002.
- David Gurney: Roman Norfolk, in T. Ashwin / A. Davison (ed.), An Historical Atlas of Norfolk, 3rd Edition, Phillimore, Chichester 2005, pp. 28-29.
- David Gurney: The Saxon Shore in Norfolk. A Festival of Norfolk Archeology, Norwich, 1996.
- Stephen Johnson: Burgh Castle: Excavations by Charles Green 1958-61, East Anglian Archeology 20, 1983.
- Stephen Johnson: The Roman Forts of the Saxon Shore. Elek, London 1976.
- DE Johnston: The Saxon Shore. CBA research reports Vol.1 (1955), No. 18, 1977.
- Paul Bidwell: Roman Forts in Britain, English Heritage, London 1997.
- JA Davies: The Land of Boudica: prehistoric and Roman Norfolk. English Heritage and Norfolk Museums & Archeology Service, Norwich 2009.
- Andrew F. Pearson: The Roman Shore Forts. Stroud-Tempus, 2002.
- Andrew F. Pearson: The construction of the Saxon Shore Forts. Archaeopress, 2003.
- Jacek Fisiak, Peter Trudgill: East Anglian English, Boydell & Brewer, 2001.
- Roger Wilson: A Guide to the Roman Remains in Britain. Constable, 2002.
- AJ Morris: The Saxon Shore Fort at Burgh Castle. Proceedings ot Suffolk Institute of Archeology, No. 24, 1948.
- Anon: Outposts of the Roman Empire: A Guide to Norfolk's Roman Forts at Burgh Castle, Caister-on-Sea and Brancaster, Norwich, 2002.
- Society for Promotion of Roman Studies The journal of Roman studies. No. 51, 1961, p. 183 and No. 52, 1962, p. 178.
- DB Harden (Hrsgb.): Dark-Age Britain: studies presented to ET Leeds, with a bibliography of his works. 1956.
- David M. Wilson (Ed.): The archeology of Anglo-Saxon England. 1976.
- ALF Rivet, Colin Smith: The place-names of Roman Britain. 1979.
- Tom Williamson: The origins of Norfolk. The origins of the shire. 1993.
- David Knowles, R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval religious houses in England and Wales. 1971.
- List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. Great Yarmouth, Jul 15, 1988, p. 10.
Web links
- Website about Fort Gariannonum from "Roman Britain"
- Gariannonum on PASTCAPE
- Norfolk Archaeological Trust / Burgh Castle
- Gariannonum on Castles | Forts | Battles
Remarks
- ^ Henry Swinden 1772, p. 2, Fisiak / Trudgill 2001, p. 40, Roger Wilson 2002, pp. 245-246, ALF Rivet / Colin Smith 1979, p. 366.
- ↑ AJ Morris 1948, pp. 100-120.
- ↑ Stephen Johnson 1983
- ^ AJ Morris 1947, pp. 100-120.
- ^ List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. Great Yarmouth, 1988, p. 10
- ↑ Jürgen Oldenstein, 2009, p. 261, AJ Morris 1947, pp. 100-120.
- ↑ Notitia Dignitatum Occ. XXVIII, 8: Praepositus equitum stablesianorum Gariannonensium, Gariannonor and a brick stamp from 395, Stephen Johnson: The Roman Forts of the Saxon Shore. 2nd Edition. Elek, London 1979, ISBN 0-236-40165-3 , pp. 68-69; Stephen Johnson: Late Roman fortifications. Batsford, London 1983, ISBN 0-7134-3476-7 , pp. 211-213.
