Castle Köngen
Map with all coordinates: | Castle Köngen | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name | Grinario |
| limes | ORL 60 ( RLK ) |
| Route (RLK) |
Neckar-Odenwald-Limes Neckar line |
| Dating (occupancy) | around 85/90 AD to 159/160 AD Vicus until the middle of the 3rd century |
| Type | Cohort fort |
| unit | unknown partially mounted cohort |
| size | 160.5 × 151 m = 2.4 ha |
| Construction | a) Wood and earth fort. b) Stone fort |
| State of preservation | partially preserved and reconstructed |
| place | Kings |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 40 '38.3 " N , 9 ° 21' 36.2" E |
| height | 280 m above sea level NHN |
| Previous | ORL 59 Fort Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt (north-north-east) |
| Subsequently | ORL 61 Fort Rottenburg (southwest, Neckar line) Fort Dettingen unter Teck (southeast, Lautertal-Limes ) |
The Köngen fort was a Roman military camp on the Neckar line of the Neckar-Odenwald-Limes . The current ground monument with the associated vicus, called Grinario in ancient times, is located in the area of today's village of Köngen , a municipality in the Esslingen district in Baden-Württemberg .
location
The fort is located on the left bank of the Neckar opposite the mouth of the Lauter on a slope terrace of the “Burgfeld” corridor. The plateau rises about 30 m above the level of the river. The vicus extends north and south of the camp for a total of a good one kilometer.
In ancient times, the fortification was located here at a geographically and strategically significant point. This is where the Roman trunk road ran from Mogontiacum ( Mainz ) to Augusta Vindelicorum ( Augsburg ) and here the Lautertal-Limes , the so-called "Sybillenspur", branched off from the Neckar-Odenwald-Limes and connected it via the small fort of Dettingen under Teck and Clarenna ( Römerstein -Donnstetten) with the Alblimes .
Research history
.jpg)
The place Grinario is already listed on the Tabula Peutingeriana . The first excavations in the area of the vicus , on the parcel called “Burgfeld”, were carried out by Oberamtmann Friedrich Karl Roser as early as 1783/84, others followed in 1843/44 and 1882 by Konrad Miller . Components of the Roman road system, building fragments of the vicus and the burial ground on the northern edge of the settlement were discovered. The military camp itself was only found in 1885 by General Eduard von Kallee and systematically examined and documented by the Reich Limes Commission (RLK) in 1896 .
Following the great excavations of the 19th century, the Esslingen Friends of Antiquity and the Swabian Alb Association reconstructed the southern corner of the camp, including the fortified tower, on the original foundations. The final completion of this reconstruction did not take place until 1911, whereby the builders oriented themselves to the Saalburg reconstruction . Contrary to the wide distance between the battlements of Roman military buildings, which was already known to archeology at that time, Emperor Wilhelm at the Saalburg demanded a historically incorrect implementation of the battlements based on medieval models. This imperial requirement was adopted well into the 20th century not only in Köngen, but also in most of the structural reconstructions at home and abroad.
As early as 1910, the ancient name Grinario was verified by the discovery of two inscription stones.
Due to construction activities, further excavations were carried out by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office in the second half of the 20th century . Most of them were small emergency and rescue excavations. The Köngen Castle has been a registered cultural monument since 1974 . In 1987/88 the "Römerpark Köngen" was built as an archaeological open-air museum on the fort grounds.
Fort
The fort was probably built under Domitian , around the years 85/90 AD, initially as a wood and earth warehouse. The conversion to a stone fort took place in the early Hadrian period, shortly after AD 120. A previously unknown cohors quingenaria equitata (partially mounted cohort ), an auxiliary unit consisting of infantry and cavalry of around 500 men, was stationed in the fortification . With the advancement of the Limes, most likely in AD 159, the camp was abandoned and its garrison was probably relocated to the Lorch fort . A bronze votive pendant was found there which, in its punched inscription, names a Cohors equitata , which is unfortunately not specified .
In its stone construction phase, the fort covered an almost square area of around 2.4 ha with sides 151.8 / 150.3 m by 161.4 / 159.6 m. It was surrounded by a stone wall with an average thickness of 1, 10 to 1.20 m. The rounded corners of the wall were reinforced with towers, the four gates were flanked by twin towers. In addition, there were a total of ten intermediate towers , four in the praetentura area (front storage area) and six in the retentura (rear storage area). With its Porta Praetoria (main gate) the fort faced southeast, towards the Neckar.
The centrally located, partially destroyed principia (staff building) with the flag sanctuary ( Sacellum or Aedes ) were uncovered and examined from the interior development, the sacellum of which, in contrast to the usual scheme of the fort, had no basement. Furthermore, a larger building of unknown destination in the northern Retentura was uncovered. The remaining interior development can be developed based on comparative findings. Praetorium (home of the commandant), Valetudinarium (hospital) and Horreum (granary) can therefore be taken for granted, as well as stables and workshops in the area of the Retentura . The Praetentura should therefore have been built on to the right and left of Via Praetoria (arterial road) by three team barracks each. In each of these barracks there were ten contubernia (communal rooms ) for eight men each. Taken together, the contubernia formed a centurion for each barrack .
After the garrison had withdrawn by AD 159/160 at the latest, the abandoned fort area was integrated into the vicus and used for civilian purposes. The floor plan of the bathing building, reconstructed today within the fort area, is evidence of this later use.
Vicus
According to the evidence of the finds, the emergence of the place Grinario , the vicus of Köngen, may not be dated at the same time as the construction of the fort, but rather with a slight delay, around the time between 90 and 100 AD.
The camp village, in which initially members of the military, then traders, craftsmen and innkeepers, and later also discharged soldiers settled, extends to the west, but especially to the southwest and north of the fort. Here the civil settlement was based on the streets leading to the neighboring forts in Sumelocenna ( Rottenburg ) and Cannstatt . Overall, Grinario can be expected to extend over a good kilometer along this traffic axis. In the west-east direction, on the other hand, its width at the most extensive points could hardly have been more than 200 m, so that the place had roughly the shape of a street village . Overall, its size was a little more than ten hectares, making it one of the more important vici of southwest Germany.
In administrative terms, Grinario was first under the commandant of the fort, then the neighboring Roman city of Sumelocenna Rottenburg , the capital of the civitas of the same name .
The center of the vicus was located immediately south and west of the fort. A beneficiary station was also located here. The beneficiaries were a kind of street police with customs powers who were responsible for keeping the public roads safe. Almost 200 m south there was a small temple dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus . In the abandoned fort area itself, a public bathing building of almost 740 square meters was erected, which had a frigidarium (cold bath) with two cold water basins, a caldarium (warm bath) with two warm water basins, a tepidarium (leaf bath) and a sudatorium (sweat bath). Other public buildings are likely to have been housed in the former fort area.
Most of the residential and commercial buildings were arranged in a strip-like arrangement at a slight angle to the passing streets, and the excavations show a wide variety of house shapes. In addition to stone buildings, there are houses that were built using different wood and timber-frame techniques. Trade, metal processing and pottery formed the economic basis of the place, with the pottery producing a wide variety of products.
At the northern end of the settlement was the walled cemetery, from which 250 graves could still be examined. It was all about cremation burials.
At the end of the 2nd century Grinario was hit by a fire, but soon recovered and flourished again in the beginning of the 3rd century. Sometime in the middle of the 3rd century this phase ended abruptly during the Alemannic expansion from 233 to 260 ( Limesfall ). Grinario was finally violently destroyed and abandoned by the surviving residents. An impressive legacy of this troubled time is a deposit of 615 silver coins discovered in 1967 .
Troops and military personnel
In the fort area, a cup-shaped, smooth terra sigillata plate from around 150 AD was recovered, which bore a roughly incised owner's notice : Cont (ubernium) signiferi Lupi ("Property of the parlor community of the field sign carrier Lupus"). The plate was made by a potter named Reginus . The Contubernium , the parlor community, was the smallest unit of the Roman army and had a common living area in the team barracks of the castles, in which people cooked together.
Found good
Terra Sigillata
In addition to the plate from the manufacturer Reginus mentioned above , which had its workshops either in Heiligenberg in Alsace or in Rheinzabern ( Tabernae ), there were 319 picture bowl fragments as early as 1962, all of which could be reliably assigned to Rheinzabern. At the latter location, for example, the manufacturers Primitivus (group II c) and Julius II – Julianus I (group III a) can be traced, who in addition to Köngen also served the Rhaetian fort Pfünz . 19 of the Primitivus' shaped bowl hallmarks were copied in Schwabegg , on the highway from Augusta Vindelicum ( Augsburg ) to Cambodunum ( Kempten ). Since Pfünz was finally destroyed in 233 AD according to today's knowledge, both sigillata factories of Primitivus and Julius II-Julianus I began production probably as early as the first third of the 3rd century. The sigillata expert Hans-Günther Simon (1925–1991) established in 1962 that the items from the two factories were probably made beyond the time when Pfünz was destroyed. This results in an approximate dating especially of these Köngener sigillates, especially since the probable general end of production in Rheinzabern probably took place in the years 260/270 AD. It was also found in 1962 that Victor I goods from Rheinzabern , as they are represented in Pfünz, do not appear in Köngen.
Wooden cladding
With the help of dendrochronology , the casing of a Köngener well could be measured to a date of 140 ± 10 AD.
Everyday items
Hans-Jürgen Eggers assigned a ladle that was found together with a cauldron in a Vicus fountain to Eggers C 1 or C 2. A bucket that was also discovered in the camp village is assigned to level C 1.
Lost property, preservation of findings and monument protection
After a small museum with an attached open-air area was set up in the reconstructed south-western corner tower of the fort in 1978 by the State Monuments Office in cooperation with the Swabian Alb Association, a larger project was started in 1985 after the entire fort area was acquired by the state, the municipality and the Alb Association Attacked and finally realized by 1988. The entire fort area was redesigned into an archaeological zone, the floor plans of the exposed buildings and the fort roads in the area were marked. Numerous copies of Roman stone monuments have been placed here, the originals can be seen in the attached new Roman Museum . Other exhibits from Roman times and the history of the Roman kings are also presented here.
Further finds were included in the magazines of the archaeological collection of the Württemberg State Museum in the Old Castle in Stuttgart .
The Kastell Köngen ground monument is protected as a registered cultural monument in the sense of the Monument Protection Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (DSchG) . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities.
See also
literature
- Christoph Engels, Andreas Thiel: Taberna or Basilica? A stone building in the center of the vicus of Grinario / Köngen. In: Find reports from Baden-Württemberg, 36 (2016), pp. 259–304 ( digitized version ).
- Philipp Filtzinger : Kings. In: Filtzinger, Planck, Cämmerer (ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg. 3rd edition, Theiss, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-8062-0287-7 , p. 369ff.
- Martin Luik : Köngen - Grinario 1. Topography, directory of sites, selected groups of finds. Theiss, Stuttgart 1996 (research and reports on prehistory and early history in Baden-Württemberg, 62), ISBN 3-8062-1246-5 .
- Martin Luik: Köngen - Grinario 2. Historical-archaeological evaluation. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004 (research and reports on prehistory and early history in Baden-Württemberg, 82), ISBN 3-8062-1921-4 .
- Martin Luik: Kings. Cohort fort and vicus. In: Dieter Planck (Ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg . Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1555-3 , pp. 149ff.
- Martin Luik and Fridolin Reutti: The Roman Park in Köngen. Theiss, Stuttgart 1988 (Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Baden-Württemberg, 12), ISBN 3-8062-0558-2 .
- Adolf Mettler in the series Der Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches (Eds. Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey ): Department B, Volume 5, Fort No. 60 (1907).
- Hans-Günther Simon: Terra Sigillata from Köngen . In: Saalburg yearbook . Volume 20, 1962, pp. 8-44.
- Christoph Unz: Grinario - the Roman fort and village in Köngen. Theiss, Stuttgart 1982 (Guide to archaeological monuments in Baden-Württemberg, 8), ISBN 3-8062-0302-4 .
- Hartwig Zürn: The administrative court decides ... To Kastell Köngen. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , 5th year 1976, issue 3, pp. 128–130.
- Matthias Ohm, Nina Willburger: The Roman coin find of Köngen. Testimony to a troubled time. Likias Verlag, Friedberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817006-7-1 .
Web links
- Roman Museum Koengen with Archaeological Park
- Grinario on the website of the history and culture association Köngen
Remarks
- ^ A b Konrad Miller: The Roman castles in Württemberg. Verlag J. Weise, Stuttgart 1892. p. 16.
- ↑ Dietwulf Baatz : The Saalburg - a Limes fort 80 years after the reconstruction. In: Günter Ulbert, Gerhard Weber (ed.): Conserved history? Ancient buildings and their preservation. Konrad Theiss publishing house. Stuttgart 1985. ISBN 3-8062-0450-0 . P. 126; Fig. 127.
- ^ Anne Johnson (German adaptation by Dietwulf Baatz): Römische Kastelle , Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-8053-0868-X , p. 176.
- ↑ Including a milestone with geographical allocation, AE 1900, 73 : Imp (erator) Caesar / divi Traian (i) / Parth (ici) f (ilius) divi / Nervae nep (os) / Traian (us) Hadri (anus) / Aug (ustus) pont (ifex) ma (ximus) / trib (unicia) pot (estate) XIII c (onsul) / III p (ater) p (atriae) a Sumel (ocenna) / m (ilia) p (assuum) XXVIIII . (In German, for example: "Imperator Caesar, son of the deified Traian, the conqueror of the Parthians, the deified Nerva grandson, Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, high priest, endowed with tribunician power for the thirteenth time, consul for the third time, father of the fatherland, of Sumelocenna [ = Rottenburg] 29 miles "(= 42.86 km).
- ^ Archeology in Germany, Edition 2/2006 . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart. P. 72
- ↑ According to a different opinion occasionally represented in the literature, the establishment did not take place until late Dominian times, towards the year 98 AD.
- ↑ Britta Rabold, Egon Schallmayer , Andreas Thiel : Der Limes , Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1461-1 , p. 98.
- ↑ a b Marcus Junkelmann: Panis militaris - The food of the Roman soldier or the basic material of power , Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-8053-2332-8 , p. 161, illus. P. 162.
- ↑ a b Hans-Günther Simon : Terra sigillata from Köngen. In: Hartwig Zürn: Festschrift Wolfgang Kimmig , E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1971, ISBN 3-510-49019-3 , p. 258.
- ↑ Barbara horse shepherd : The ceramics of the castle Holzhausen . (= Limesforschungen 16), Mann, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-7861-1070-0 , p. 20 ff.
- ↑ Fundberichte from Baden-Wuerttemberg , Tisza, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-806217270 , S. 724th
- ↑ Werner Zanier : The Roman fort Ellingen . Zabern (Limes Research Series, Volume 23), Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-8053-1264-4 . P. 124.
- ↑ Bernd Becker: Felling dates of Roman construction timbers based on a 2350 year old South German oak tree ring chronology . In find reports from Baden-Württemberg. Volume 6. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 380621252X , p. 386.
- ↑ Hans-Jürgen Eggers: Chronology of the Imperial Era in Germania . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World . Volume II, 5, 1. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-11-006690-4 , p. 27.
Fort Wimpfen im Tal | Heilbronn-Böckingen fort | Castles of Walheim | Benningen Fort | Fort Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt | Castle Köngen (Grinario) | Rottenburg Castle (Sumelocenna) | Sulz Castle | Waldmössingen Castle | Castles of Rottweil (Arae Flaviae)