Fort Ober-Florstadt

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Fort Ober-Florstadt
limes ORL 19 ( RLK )
Route (RLK) Upper German Limes,
route 4
(Wetterau route)
Dating (occupancy) around 90 AD
up to the Limes Falls
Type Cohort fort
unit cohors XXXII voluntariorum cR
size 183 × 155 m = 2.8 ha
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation Ground monument
place Florstadt - Upper Florstadt
Geographical location 50 ° 19 '25.7 "  N , 8 ° 52' 36.4"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 19 '25.7 "  N , 8 ° 52' 36.4"  E
height 134  m above sea level NHN
Upstream Small fort Staden (east)
Small fort Stammheim (southeast)
Plan of the fort after the excavations of the RLK in 1903
View of the fort area with a display board

The Ober-Florstadt Fort (also Oberflorstadt Fort ) was a Roman fort on the Wetterau line of the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes . It was located at today's Florstadt - Ober-Florstadt in the Hessian Wetteraukreis . Nothing is visible of the system today.

location

Fort Ober-Florstadt is located on a hill south of the Nidda , 2.5 km from the Limes. The field name "Auf der Warte" refers to a medieval observation post. From here one could see a large part of the Nidda and Horloff Depression as well as a large part of the adjacent Limes area. The fort is located on the southern outskirts of Ober-Florstadt about 750 meters as the crow flies southeast of the confluence of the Horloff and Nidda rivers.

Fort

exploration

The fort was discovered by the route commissioner of the Reichs-Limeskommission (RLK), Friedrich Kofler , and excavated in 1886, 1888 and 1893. The largely undeveloped area could be extensively investigated, which is why no planned excavations took place at the fort itself later. Even Kofler was often only able to determine the excavation pits of the walls, as obviously a large part of the walls fell victim to the stone robbery. Building measures in 1974 that affected the civil settlement could only be accompanied with smaller investigations. Many finds were collected by volunteers, especially the fort was frequently visited by robbery graves . For the reasons mentioned above, excavations in the fort area are unlikely to be informative today.

A further investigation of some strip houses in the civil settlement was carried out in 2006 by the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Frankfurt .

Finding

Kofler was able to excavate a 183 × 155 m large fort with rounded corners. It was aligned to ONO towards the Limes and had two six meter wide, circumferential pointed trenches that were interrupted at the gates. The fort wall, which had neither intermediate nor corner towers, was found to be 1.75 m wide. The foundation was sometimes only 30–40 cm deep, but usually between one and 1.20 meters. The difference is explained by the different weathering of the existing blister basalt . Only a small part of the wall was preserved and many farmers had broken it off. It consisted of cast masonry, the cladding of which was made of smoothed sand and basalt stones in the area of ​​the foundation, and above of carefully hewn sandstones with a length of 26 to 30 cm and a height of 10 to 20 cm.

The interior of the fort could be demonstrated in particularly numerous ways. These included the principia (staff building) in the middle of the fort as well as a building complex with a hypocausted room, presumably the commandant's apartment ( praetorium ) . Another building with strong foundations could have been a granary ( horreum ) .

A special feature for forts on the Upper German Limes are the team barracks, which can still be seen in aerial photographs today. The foundations of these stone buildings, which are usually made of wood or half-timbered construction, are quite rare on the Limes.

Fort bath

Kofler found the bathing building about 45 meters north of the street leading out of the porta praetoria (east of the fort). The interior was badly disturbed and the remains of around 60 hypocaust pillars, wall painting and screed floors ( opus signinum ) were found. The floor plan, which deviates significantly from the central baths of the later Limes fort, raises questions. Kofler believed that he recognized a double bath, which was possibly also used by the residents of the civil settlement ( Vicus ) , and made comparisons with the fort baths of Eining and Osterburken . The interpretation of the building as a fort bath is usually only given as probable in recent research.

Fort vicus

Larger parts of the civil settlement were found in the local area of ​​Ober-Florstadt. It stretched northwest of the fort. As aerial photos show, the vicus was surrounded by a defensive moat that connected to the fort and reached down to the Nidda. In addition to various individual examinations, at least four, probably seven, strip houses were discovered in 2006. With the small parcel width of 4.50 m, the plots were 45 to 50 m long.

The construction of the fort vicus probably began soon after the fort was founded around 90 AD. However, finds from the third century are rare, which suggests a decline in settlement. The more recent investigations could not find any indications for a destruction horizon suspected by Wagner towards the end of the 2nd century. A ceramic depot similar to the similar findings from the vicus of Fort Langenhain , which was deposited there in a cellar at that time, could point to destruction in 233 .

One of the particularly conspicuous structures of the vicus is the discovery of a mithraum north of the fort by Kofler in 1888. As usual for these buildings, it was sunk into the ground, and the three-aisled cella was therefore well preserved. The expected cult relief was missing, but there was a stone sculpture of a dadophore and, opposite, the base of its counterpart. The inside of the building was colorfully painted. In the cult room there were remains of over 20 clay lamps as well as some consecration altars.

Dating

The initial dating of the fort varies somewhat between the Domitian and Trajan times, and is usually given around or shortly before the year 100 AD. A predecessor building from the Domitian period, which is widely suspected, has not yet been confirmed by excavated findings , but it may appear in the aerial photograph. The composition of the brick stamps is very similar to the Stockstadt Castle . Particularly noticeable is a group of early brick stamps of the Legio XXII Primigenia from Mainz with the writing in tabulae ansatae .

The occupation of the fort is assumed to be the cohors XXXII voluntariorum civium Romanorum (32nd volunteer cohort of Roman citizens) based on brick finds . The unit's brick stamps are rare elsewhere, so it is likely that they were mainly produced for their own construction work. The unit was previously in Nida-Heddernheim and probably remained in Ober-Florstadt until the end of the Limes around 260 AD.

The coin treasure of Ober-Florstadt

Coin treasure from Ober-Florstadt, exhibition in the Wetterau Museum in Friedberg

The most important find from the fort consists of a coin hoard that was recovered in 1984 near the western corner in the interior of the fort. It consisted of 1136 denarii and had been plowed along with the surrounding ceramic vessel. The find is exhibited today in the Wetterau Museum in Friedberg .

The coins, which date from the Roman Republic to Severus Alexander , represent more than one and a half times the annual earnings of an auxiliary soldier (750 denarii). The composition largely corresponds to the money in circulation in Upper Germany at that time , although antoninians that have been minted since 214/5 are not included. It is therefore more likely to have been a matter of the savings of one or more soldiers, as considerably more freshly minted coins would have been expected in the troop coffers. A burial in view of events related to the Germanic invasion of 233 is obvious. The owner or owners apparently died in the process and no longer dug the buried hoard.

Limes structures near the Ober-Florstadt fort

The fort at the rear is likely to have essentially maintained the small fort Staden and Stammheim directly on the Limes. Little of the Limes itself has been preserved in the heavily agricultural region. A short visible section is located south of Stammheim, larger preserved parts northeast of the neighboring Echzell Fort or south of Altenstadt Fort .

Monument protection

As part of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, the fort and the facilities mentioned have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2005 . There are also ground monuments according to the Hessian Monument Protection Act . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities.

See also

literature

  • Eduard Anthes , Friedrich Kofler and Wilhelm Soldan: stretches 4 and 5 (the Wetterau line from the Köpperner Tal near the Saalburg to the Main near Gross-Krotzenburg). The route description. In: Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey (ed.): The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches / Abt. A, Vol. 2, routes 4 and 5 (The Wetterau line from the Köpperner Tal near Saalburg to the Main near Gross-Krotzenburg) , 1936, pp. 141–143.
  • Dietwulf Baatz , in: Derselbe and Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (ed.): The Romans in Hessen . 3. Edition. 1989. Licensed edition Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , pp. 274f.
  • Dietwulf Baatz: The Roman Limes. Archaeological excursions between the Rhine and the Danube. 4th edition. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7861-2347-0 , p. 166.
  • Alexander Heising , Jörg Lindenthal, Alexander Reis: In the neighborhood of the Mithräums - insights into the structure of the camp village of Florstadt – Ober-Florstadt. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2006, pp. 79–82.
  • Helmut Schubert: The denar treasure from Ober-Florstadt. A Roman coin treasure from the cohort fort on the eastern Wetteraulimes. Wiesbaden 1994 (Archaeological Monuments in Hesse 118).
  • Paul Wagner: The northwest vicus of the fort Ober-Florstadt. In: Vera Rupp (Hrsg.): Archeology of the Wetterau. Aspects of research. Friedberg 1991 (Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter, Volume 40), ISBN 3-87076-064-8 , pp. 245–247.

Excavation report of the Reich Limes Commission :

Web links

Commons : Kastell Ober-Florstadt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heising / Lindenthal / Reis 2006, excavation campaign 2006: Fort vicus Florstadt-Ober-Florstadt, Wetteraukreis ( Memento from June 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ All information according to Kofler, ORL B (see literature list).
  3. ↑ a b Baatz 1989, p. 274.
  4. ↑ Kofler, ORL B p. 7.
  5. ↑ Wagner 1991
  6. ↑ a b Heising / Lindenthal / Reis 2006. p. 80.
  7. ↑ Wagner 1991, p. 246f.
  8. ↑ Susanne Biegert, Bernd Steidl : A ceramics dealer in the vicus of the Limes fort Ober-Florstadt. Terra Sigillata and local groups of goods from the 3rd century AD In: Bernd Liesen (Ed.): Terra Sigillata in the Germanic provinces. Xanten Colloquium 13.-14. September 2008. Zabern, Mainz 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4345-9 , pp. 221-332 (= Xantener reports , volume 20); Ingeborg Huld-Zetsche , Bernd Steidl: The two new crockery depots from Echzell and Langenhain. In: Munster contributions to ancient trade history XIII 2, 1994, pp. 47–59.
  9. ↑ Around AE 1903, 00380 or CIL 13, 07425 .
  10. ↑ On the fort occupation see Barbara Oldenstein-Pferdehirt: The Roman auxiliary troops north of the Main. Research on the Upper Germanic Army I. In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums 30, 1983, pp. 303-348, especially p. 337.
  11. ↑ On the coin treasure see Schubert 1994.