Seligenstadt fort
| Seligenstadt fort | |
|---|---|
| limes | ORL 32 ( RLK ) |
| Route (RLK) | Upper German Limes, route 6 (Main line) |
| Dating (occupancy) | Trajanic period until the Limes Falls |
| Type | Cohort fort |
| unit | Cohors I civium Romanorum equitata |
| size | 190 × 160m = 3.04 hectares |
| Construction | Stone fort |
| State of preservation | overbuilt |
| place | Seligenstadt |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 2 '38.7 " N , 8 ° 58' 33.1" E |
| height | 109 m above sea level NHN |
| Previous | ORL 23: Großkrotzenburg Fort (north) |
| Subsequently | ORL 33: Stockstadt Fort (south) |
The Seligenstadt fort was a Roman fort on the Main line of the Upper German-Raetian Limes in Seligenstadt in the Offenbach district in Hesse . Today the facility is completely built over and is no longer visible above ground.
location
The Seligenstadt Fort is apart from the Hainstadt Fort located slightly backwards on the Main , which, however, with Fort Salisberg and Stockstadt is to be set a little earlier in Domitian times, is the northernmost fort on the Main line before the Limes crosses the river at Großkrotzenburg .
The fort is located in the city center of Seligenstadt on a slight elevation that extends from the west at an altitude of about 109 m above sea level. NN extends tongue-shaped into the level of the Main. The small plateau towers over the river by four meters and thus offered a certain protection against flooding. It was easy to reach from the west, while there are slight lowlands to the north and south that drain to the Main.
Research history
Roman finds since the beginning of the 19th century suggest a Roman fort in Seligenstadt. Fragments of Roman vessels were found in front of the Frankfurter Tor at the Kiesgraben in 1816/17. When the city wall was demolished at the main gate , remnants of walls and hypocausts were found, but these were only interpreted as part of the Roman fort baths when the main gate was demolished in 1840/41. The consecration stone of Lucius Gellius Celerianus , centurion of Legio XXII Primigenia was also found there .
Excavations by the Imperial Limes Commission under Friedrich Kofler followed in 1886, 1896 and 1902. Kofler primarily searched the area of the Benedictine abbey without finding any findings that could be clearly assigned to the fort . Only Ernst Fabricius suspected the fort in the Limeswerk to be under the old town of Seligenstadt.
Finally, in 1937, parts of the fort fortifications were found there during canal work by Otto Müller and Karl Nahrgang . During renewed excavations in the monastery area in 1951 and 1954/55, the findings there were recognized as part of the vicus . Excavations carried out by Egon Schallmayer in 1975/76 behind the town hall revealed a section of the fort's interior buildings.
Fort
Findings and history
The very detailed findings of Nahrgangs and Müller made it possible to determine the size of the fort at 160 × 190 meters. The fort took up a large part of the old town, from the Kaiserpfalz to beyond the market square and from Kleine Maingasse to Mohrmühlgasse.
The cohors I civium Romanorum equitata (1st partially mounted cohort of Roman citizens) is occupied as the crew . An inscription that was walled up above the pulpit of the Einhards basilica names this unit. Finds of four different stamp types of the cohort on bricks in Seligenstadt also suggest the presence of this unit. From military diplomas , the unity is first attested in Lower Germany , but already since 116 AD in Upper Germany . An inscription from Großkrotzenburg proves that its commandant, a cohort prefect, also received the IIII. Vindeliker cohort was under.
The excavations in 1975/76 produced a section of the interior of the fort with two 3 × 3 meter rooms and a portico in front , consisting of a post ditch and a two-period eaves ditch. It remains unclear whether it is part of the staff building ( Principia ) , as there are similar room sizes in the team barracks. This means that the orientation of the fort remains uncertain; the fort was probably with the main gate to the east, towards the Main and Limes. This would also correspond to the orientation of the two main fortifications in the south, Stockstadt and Niedernberg .
Bath building
The early excavations on the bathing building southeast of the fort did not cover the entire building. Essentially, the hypocausted hot and leaf arteries were cut. Presumably it was a row-type bathroom in which the differently tempered rooms were used one after the other. A special feature of the construction was the different height levels of the rooms on the slope facing the Main bank. Fresh water was probably supplied from the south-west by means of a branch of the now canalised Breitenbach stream .
Numerous stamped bricks were found in the fort bath, including many of the 22nd Legion from Mainz and the coh. I cr eq. The finds were already lost at the time of the Reich Limes Commission . A few brick stamps from later excavations are exhibited in the Seligenstadt Landscape Museum today.
Dating
The finds from the excavations in 1975/76 (here especially from the eaves ditches), the inscription and brick finds suggest the following chronology: First wooden construction phase around 100 AD. The stone expansion then took place around 150 AD. That goes well with the Dating of the surrounding forts, namely Großkrotzenburg, which was probably built after the Hanau-Salisberg fort was abandoned in the Trajan period. Similarly, south of the Main, the same development could exist with the abandonment of the Hainstadt fort for Seligenstadt.
The fort existed until the Limesfall around 260 AD. Late antique finds from the interior of the fort, which was uncovered in 1975/76, confirm the presence of Alemanni in post-Roman times. These finds include a Follis des Constans , a leg crest and cog-decorated argon sigillata .
Civil settlement and burial grounds
The associated fort village ( vicus ) extended on the three sides of the land around the fort. Individual finds in the north extend beyond Stadtmühlgasse and Schlüsselgasse. Several pits, streets and cellars were found in the monastery grounds south of the fort. The expansion to the west is uncertain. A coin treasure of 162 denarii was found here in 1965 and is now exhibited in the museum. Presumably the treasure torn apart by the excavator during sewer work was more extensive than published, as the finds did not come completely into public collections. It could originally have included up to 500 coins. The finds from the vicus date back to the Limes Falls around AD 260.
The discovery of a graffito on a terra sigillata shard (... OGABI NVNDINENSIVM) is interpreted as naming a market deity and could indicate that a Roman market existed in Seligenstadt. An inscription mentioning a beneficiarius consularis could indicate a station of this police force similar to Obernburg or Großkrotzenburg.
As expected, grave fields were located on the southern, western and northern arteries. A large grave field was in the vicinity of the Steinheimer Tor, another under the Protestant church and on Froschhausener Strasse. Frequent vessel finds, few coin finds and many individual investigations of Roman graves during construction work brought together the overall picture of these grave fields.
The Roman roads correspond to the connection on the Main from Stockstadt to the proven Main bridges at Großkrotzenburg and Kesselstadt and to the west of the connection via Babenhausen to Dieburg . The remains of a wooden bridge found in the Main in 1887 probably date from the Carolingian period or even later from the Middle Ages.
Seligenstadt Museum
The local museum is located in the former Benedictine Abbey of Seligenstadt Monastery ; the entrance is from the monastery courtyard. The RegioMuseum (formerly: Landschaftsmuseum Seligenstadt ) provides information about Roman times, monastery and town history as well as folklore . The consecration stone from the Maintorturm is displayed on the right in the entrance area. The Roman section is on the 1st floor. It contains parts of a Jupiter column, large quantities of ceramic finds, including stamped bricks, and parts of the coin treasure mentioned above.
Monument protection
The Seligenstadt fort and the facilities mentioned, as part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, 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
- 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. 176.
- Dagmar Kroener, Gesine Weber: News from the Roman and medieval Seligenstadt - results of construction-accompanying measures and emergency salvage. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2001. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1749-1 , p. 112 f.
- Karl Nahrgang : The archaeological finds of prehistory and early history in the city and district of Offenbach am Main. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1967, pp. 187-196.
- Egon Schallmayer : The Roman Seligenstadt, Offenbach district. Guide sheet to the fort and the civil settlement. State Office for Monument Preservation, Wiesbaden 1979 (Archaeological Monuments in Hesse 9).
- Egon Schallmayer: Excavations in Seligenstadt. On the Roman and medieval topography . Saalburg-Jahrbuch 43, 1987, pp. 5-60.
- Egon Schallmayer, in: Dietwulf Baatz and Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (eds.): The Romans in Hessen . 3. Edition. 1989. Licensed edition Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , pp. 477-479.
- Bernd Steidl : World Heritage Limes - Rome's border on the Main . Volume accompanying the exhibition in the Archaeological State Collection Munich 2008. Logo, Obernburg 2008, ISBN 3-939462-06-3 , pp. 68–73.
- Gesine Weber: Romans who love to write - new finds from the Roman town of Seligenstadt. In: hessenARCHÄOLOGIE 2006 pp. 82–84.
- Georg Wiesenthal, in: Werner Jorns : New land documents from Starkenburg . Bärenreiter, Kassel 1953, pp. 115f., 141f.
Excavation report of the Reich Limes Commission :
- Ernst Fabricius : The Seligenstadt fort. In: Ernst Fabricius, Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey (Hrsg.): The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches / Abt. B III No. 32 (1914) pp. 1-6 and tables.
Web links
- Fort Seligenstadt on the website of the German Limes Commission
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to a more recent evaluation of the coin series even between 100 and 110 AD, see 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. 30.
- ↑ a b Helmut Castritius , Manfred Clauss : The Roman stone inscriptions of the Odenwald and its peripheral landscapes (RSOR). In: Contributions to the exploration of the Odenwald and its peripheral landscapes 3 . Breuberg - Neustadt 1980, No. 27.
- ↑ CIL 13, 6659 .
- ↑ Fabricius 1914 ORL B II No. 32.
- ↑ Fabricius 1914 ORL B II No. 32. p. 5.
- ↑ CIL 13, 7411 .
- ↑ Schallmayer 1989, p. 478.
- ^ So on the plan in Nahrgang 1967, p. 188, fig. 189.
- ↑ Schallmayer 1989 p. 478; Schallmayer 1979.
- ^ Helmut Schubert: The coins found in the Roman period in Germany (FMRD) Dept. V: Hessen. Vol. 2.1: Darmstadt. Mainz 1989, ISBN 3-7861-1292-4 , pp. 389-403; Nahrgang 1967, p. 189.
- ↑ Bernd Steidl: Limes World Heritage: Rome's border on the Main. Logo, Obernburg am Main 2008, p. 107.
- ^ AE 1989, 572 .
- ↑ Regio Museum on the homepage of the district Offenbach .
