Kleiner Feldberg Castle
| Kleiner Feldberg Castle | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name |
Feldberg Fort or Feldberg Fort |
| limes | ORL 10 ( RLK ) |
| Route (RLK) |
Upper German Limes , Hochtaunus route |
| Dating (occupancy) | shortly after 150 AD to around 260 AD |
| Type | Numerus fort |
| unit | Exploratio Halicanensium |
| size | 0.7 ha |
| Construction | stone |
| State of preservation | partially reconstructed |
| place | Glassworks and Schmitten - Niederreifenberg |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 13 '37.7 " N , 8 ° 26' 40.8" E |
| height | 700 m above sea level NHN |
| Previous | Maisel fort (west) |
| Subsequently | Small fort Altes Jagdhaus (northeast) |
The Kleiner Feldberg Fort , often referred to in the specialist literature as Feldberg Fort or Feldberg Fort , was a Roman military camp whose crew was responsible for security and surveillance tasks on the Upper German Limes . The facility was built on the northern slope of the second highest elevation in the Taunus , the Kleiner Feldberg . This is located in the Hochtaunuskreis below the Hochtaunusstrasse . The source of the Weil is located near the fort . With its north wall, the fortification stands on the border between glassworks and the Schmitten district of Niederreifenberg . The altitude of more than 700 meters above sea level makes the Feldberg Fort the highest military camp on the entire Upper German-Raetian Limes.
location
The soldiers stationed at the Kleiner Feldberg had the task of securing the neighboring Feldbergpass at the Red Cross ( 688 m above sea level ), an old road crossing over the Taunus. The course of the Limes crossed the road about a kilometer west of the fort. However, for reasons of water supply, the garrison was not founded directly on the pass road, but near the source of the Weil . A trade route running along the Limes led in a north-east-south-west direction across the fortification, which also controlled the traffic on this connection.
Research history
The remains of the fort bath were known to the residents of the region even before scientific research began and were referred to as the “Heidenkirche”. The Roman origin of these remains has been assured by the end of the 18th century at the latest. The first archaeological excavations at the Feldberg Fort took place shortly after the middle of the 19th century, systematic scientific investigations followed from 1892, initially by the Imperial Limes Commission , and later by the Saalburg Museum .
The fort was last extensively restored in 2004/2005 against the background of the then expected and now recognized recognition of the Limes as a UNESCO World Heritage Site .
Building history
The Feldberg Fort was built around 150 AD. The small finds and the dendrodating of a spring in the vicus indicate this. The series of coins has a first maximum around 160 AD. The rectangular facility had dimensions of 78 × 93 meters and a size of a good 0.7 hectares. The surrounding wall was built from irregular, mortared ashlar stones. This was followed by white plastering as well as the dummy joint painting typical of Roman military buildings, which was supposed to simulate carefully placed ashlar masonry. The defensive wall was surrounded by a simple pointed moat. In each of the four rounded corners of the wall there was a tower leaning against the surrounding wall. Inside, the Agger was piled up along the wall . This was an earth dam that reached below the level of the battlements and served as a battlement . With its praetorial front , on which the Porta praetoria (main gate) was located, the entire complex was oriented to the northwest. There the Limes ran around 100 meters away. All four gates of the fort were flanked by twin towers.
The four walls of the Feldberg fort enclosed some stone buildings, including the flag sanctuary of the centrally located Principia (staff building) and a Horreum (granary) northwest of it . Another stone building existed east of the staff building, which may be referred to as the Praetorium (the commandant's residence). Most of the buildings inside the camp, however, were made of wood and half-timbering and are no longer visible. A team barracks built in this way was found in the southern, rear part of the camp - the Retentura - immediately west of the Principia . Workshops and stables, also made of wood, were located east of the Via praetoria, which led to the north to Porta praetoria . Further secured foundations along the cross street could have been used to terrace the sloping terrain. There were also wells and cisterns. Hair fragments of a large bronze, which date to around 230 AD, come from the fort area.
Outside the actual fort, in the direction of the Limes, was the military bath. The foundation walls of this balineum were restored as part of the restoration work carried out in 2004/2005.
The fort on the Kleine Feldberg existed until the internal and external political and economic crisis of the empire around the middle of the 3rd century ( Limesfall ).
Vicus
The vicus (civil settlement) belonging to the fort, with members of the soldiers' families and Romanised locals, was located in two separate settlement cores to the southwest and southeast of the defense structure on the streets starting from the respective gates. It mainly consisted of elongated and closely spaced houses. Agriculture was not possible because of the unfavorable climate and soil conditions in this area. In addition to handicraft services for the fort, the residents mainly engaged in trade, cattle breeding, hunting and logging. Today no remains of the vicus are visible. A burial ground could be located southwest of the garrison.
Troop
The fort served as accommodation for a numerus , an auxiliary force of around 160 men. This involved the partially mounted Exploratio Halicanensium ("reconnaissance unit from Halicanum"), which was presumably recruited in the Pannonian town of Halicanum, today's village of Szerdahely in Hungary.
Surroundings
The Limes has been able to maintain itself very well from the Feldberg Fort to the neighboring Saalburg in the east due to its remote location in the forests of the Taunus. The course of the Wall and Graben can be followed for many kilometers. There are also some smaller structures here, some of which have been preserved in their foundations, but are at least noticeable in the area. Among them is the small fort Altes Jagdhaus , a single-gate stone fort from the middle of the 2nd century with a size of around 630 square meters.
The source of the Weil lies 200 m southeast of the fort up in the spruce forest. The relic of a wooden water pipe ( Deuchel ) found on site was dated to around 170 AD using dendrochronology .
The Romans reached the Feldberg Fort on Feldbergstrasse , the so-called Pflasterweg , a connection over the Taunus ridge to the Fuchstanz , past the Altkönig slope ( Haderweg ) over the Hünerbergwiesen and then over the Stierstadt district to Niederursel to Saalburgstrasse , which left the Roman Nida at the north gate . The Reifenberger Meadows northwest of the fort, designated as a nature reserve, are the highest of their kind in the Taunus. In Roman times, the pastures for supplying the civilian settlement were located here.
Monument protection
The Kleiner Feldberg fort and the adjoining Limes structures have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage as a section of the Upper German-Raetian Limes since 2005 . In addition, they are ground monuments according to the Hessian Monument Protection Act . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, random finds must be reported to the monument authorities.
The facility is looked after by the State Palaces and Gardens Administration of Hesse .
See also
literature
- Dietwulf Baatz : Feldberg in the Taunus. Numeruskastell In: The Romans in Hesse. Hamburg: Nikol, 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , pp. 266-269.
- Dietwulf Baatz: The Roman Limes. Archaeological excursions between the Rhine and the Danube. Mann, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7861-2347-0 .
- Dietwulf Baatz: The Roman fort on the Kleiner Feldberg in the Taunus . 2nd supplementary edition. Department for Prehistory and Early History in the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-89822-058-3 ( Archaeological Monuments in Hessen 58 ).
- Astrid Böhme: The fibulae of the fort on the small Feldberg (Hochtaunuskreis) . Saalburg-Jahrbuch 31, 1974, pp. 5-14.
- Ulrike Ehmig: The amphorae from the Kleiner Feldberg fort . Saalburg-Jahrbuch 51, 2001, pp. 37-78.
- Louis Jacobi in the series Der Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches (Eds. Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey ): Department B, Volume II, 1 Fort No. 10 (1905)
- Margot Klee : The Roman Limes in Hessen. History and sites of the UNESCO World Heritage. Pustet, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7917-2232-0 , pp. 94-97.
- Margot Klee: The Limes between Rhine and Main . Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0276-1 .
- Peter Knieriem, Elke Löhnig: The "Heidenkirche" at the Feldberg fort. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2005. Theiss, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-8062-2053-0 , pp. 80–82.
Web links
- Feldberg Fort on the website of the German Limes Commission, accessed on February 23, 2016
- Feldberg Fort on the website of the private Limes project taunus-wetterau-limes.de, accessed on February 23, 2016
Remarks
- ↑ To the restoration of the fort on the page bildungsklick.de
- ^ A b Ernst Hollstein : Central European Oak Chronology: Trier dendrochronological research on archeology and art history , von Zabern, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-8053-0096-4 ( Trier excavations and research 11 ), p. 112.
- ↑ Klaus Kortüm : On the dating of the Roman military installations in the Upper German-Raetian Limes area. In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 49, 1998. Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 36.
- ↑ Martin Kemkes : The image of the emperor on the border - A new large bronze fragment from the Raetian Limes . In: Andreas Thiel (Ed.): Research on the function of the Limes . Volume 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-2117-6 , p. 144.
- ↑ Kleiner Feldberg Castle . In: Homepage of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse .
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