Unterböbingen fort

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Unterböbingen fort
limes ORL 65 ( RLK )
Route (RLK) Rhaetian Limes,
route 12
Dating (occupancy) between 150 and 160 AD
to no later than 266 AD
Type Cohort fort
unit unknown Cohors quingenaria or Cohors quingenaria equitata
size 148 m × 135 m = around 2 ha
Construction stone
State of preservation Fort place largely overbuilt and destroyed; The southeastern fort gate, the southeastern corner of the fort and parts of the east wall with an intermediate tower have been preserved
place Boebingen
Geographical location 48 ° 49 '7.4 "  N , 9 ° 55' 26.5"  E
height 409  m above sea level NHN
Previous Small fort Hintere Orthalde (west)
Subsequently Aalen Fort (northeast)
Backwards Fort Schirenhof (southwest)
Small fort Freimühle (southwest)

The Unterböbingen fort is a former Roman garrison site , the remains of which are today in the east of the municipality of Böbingen an der Rems in the Ostalb district in Baden-Württemberg . The camp, measured for a cohort , was built near the south bank of the Rems to secure the nearby Rhaetian Limes , which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005 .

location

Site plan (1892–1894)
Floor plan and terrain profiles (1892–1894)

The facility was built with clever use of the area on a raised terrain spur above the south bank of the Rems. While the terrain rises to around 446 meters to the south-east, it drops to the west into the valley of the Klotzbach , which flows below the fort into the Rems River, which flows from east to west here. From the fort, the Limes running north on the heights above the Remstal could be seen directly, because to the west of the fortification the Rhaetian Wall falls steeply into the Remstal when coming from the west, regardless of the terrain, where it bends gently in a northeastern direction and rise again up the heights. In total, the Unterböbingen garrison was able to monitor around 20 Limes towers over a distance of 15 kilometers between the western Herlikofen to the Kolbenberg in the east.

Research history

As evidenced by the field name “Bürgle”, the knowledge of an old fortification in this place never seems to have completely passed. During the first excavations in 1885 and in autumn 1886 by the retired Chief of Staff of the Württemberg Army, Eduard von Kallée , Unterböbingen was recognized as a fort and examined in 1892 by Major Heinrich Steimle on behalf of the Reich Limes Commission (RLK). This enabled valuable results to be secured for the future, because between 1930 and 1935 the praetentura (front warehouse) including the large multi-purpose hall belonging to the staff building was destroyed by quarrying work in order to gain gravel for road construction. Since no follow-up examinations could take place in this area before the destruction, many questions have remained open.

The remnants of the fort were extensively examined in the spring and summer of 1973 by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office , Department of Ground Heritage Management, under the direction of Dieter Planck , before extensive overbuilding and the associated loss of this ancient site began. In 1975, during an excavation, larger parts of the civil settlement could be examined with a probable street station before historical findings were finally destroyed here too. In 1978 the excavators came again. A site on which a temple stood, which had already been examined in 1885/86 and 1892, had to be re-examined in 1981 because the municipality of Böbingen had planned it for the construction of a hall.

Building history

The fort was built because the Alblimes were moved forward to the Remstal area. As dendrochronological investigations on or at the Limes palisade in Rotenbachtal near the Kleindeinbach small fort and in western Schwabsberg show, the Rhaetian border extension in this area took place around the middle of the 160s AD. The troops needed to build the palisade must have set up their camps a few years earlier. Unterböbingen was co-administered by the Aalen fort . Due to the destruction that took place in the 20th century in particular, significant parts of the Böbingen antiquity are lost.

Enclosure

The single-lane Porta decumana
The southeast corner of the fort
Restored intermediate tower of the east wall

The structure was erected directly on a natural rock slab, which made some special findings possible. Clearly distinguishable construction phases could not be determined. The fort was built in an approximately south-north orientation. The Praetorial Front , i.e. the defensive wall facing the enemy, stood in the north and was oriented towards the Limes on the opposite side of the Remstal. With its 1.2 meter wide defensive walls (playing card shape) rounded at the corners, the facility enclosed a rectangular area of ​​148 × 135 meters (= around 2 hectares). Following the usual structure of its time, it had four gates, each flanked by two gate towers. While the Porta principalis sinistra (here: west gate) and the Porta principalis dextra (here: east gate) each had two passages, at the rear Porta decumana (here: south gate) only a single-lane driveway could be determined. Of the Porta praetoria set in the middle of the Praetorial Front , only the 4.475 meter wide east tower remained. The ground-level tower entrances that could still be made out were two meters wide. At some point the southern gate passage at the west gate was obviously bricked up. A similar finding could also be made at the west gate of Fort Pfünz . Both in the four corners, in each of which there was a trapezoidal tower, as well as in the retentura , the rear part of the camp, a rectangular tower could be made out on the western and eastern long sides. All the towers had been built leaning against the wall. Herringbone masonry ( Opus spicatum ) was found on the southeast corner tower and the eastern intermediate tower . It is debated whether rectangular foundations on the fort wall could have been gun turrets. This includes a square wall in Unterböbingen, which was built right next to the northwest tower on the Praetorial Front. As a special feature, at least three eight-meter-wide pointed trenches , which surrounded the camp as an obstacle to the approach, were carved into the rock.

Interior development

At the intersection of the two main axes of the fort, inside the complex, where the two main camp streets Via principalis and Via praetoria intersected, was the large, 57.40 × 16 meter multi-purpose hall of the barracks across the Via Principalis , with the barracks behind it Karree adjoining rooms of the Principia , the staff building. The service and administration rooms of this house were arranged around a rectangular courtyard surrounded by columns. The back room, at least three of them heated, right and left were the center in the Principia arranged flags sanctuary (Aedes Principiorum) . With its semicircular apse, the sanctuary protruded from the back wall of the staff building. The design of the sanctuary with semicircular apses has only become customary in the forts of the Germanic provinces since the middle of the 2nd century. To the west of the staff building and following its long side, the Horreum , the storage building, was excavated, the floors of which lay on stone pillars. To the east was the Praetorium , the camp commandant's house, which was only partially built in wood. Those rooms that could be heated were made of stone. The rooms standing on a solid foundation are evidently the bathroom of the house. Two of the rooms could be heated, the eastern area with an apse could be used as a cold bath ( frigidarium ) . Since the stone robbery was very intense, some findings could not be recognized without any doubt. The research was able to locate another stone building in the eastern part of the Praetentura , the rear storage area. The actual assignment of this structure, which has become known as the "barrack", remains unknown, however, as it was destroyed during the quarry work in the 1930s. The RLK was able to see the remains of burned wooden buildings under the “barracks”. In the Retentura , along the Via sagularis (Lagerringstrasse), a sewer (Cloaca) , also carved into the rock bank, was exposed, which flowed south of the southeast corner tower into the innermost pointed ditch. This canal contained important small finds. Due to a layer of fire in the area of Horreum and Principia, the researchers concluded that Unterböbingens would end violently.

Found good

In addition to other finds, brooches, coins, a silver spoon, the gold-plated letter of an inscription, military belt fittings decorated with breakthrough technology, parts of harness and the bronze thumb of a larger-than-life armored statue, which probably represented an emperor, from the fort area should be mentioned. The fragment of a bronze military diploma comes from the Praetentura , but it can no longer be clearly dated. However, research places it in the first half of the 2nd century AD.

A four-inch-high Roman bronze figure was found in the fort in the past, but has long been considered lost. Today, an outstandingly preserved bronze Jupiter statuette, found in 1926, is one of the most important finds. The 11.8 centimeter high figure was recovered from the gravel of the Rems eleven kilometers below Unterböbingen. It remains unknown whether Jupiter also came from the fort or how Mars, which was recovered in 1962 (see below), is to be assigned to the camp village.

Fort bath

The military bath ( Balineum ) , which was also available to the residents of the village, could be identified in 1978 north of the fort on a high terrace on the edge of the Remstal. A well-preserved bronze yoke attachment was found in its rubble.

Vicus, Mansio and Temple

The vicus , the civilian camp village, extended south, southeast and east of the garrison. In 1975 residential buildings were examined 80 meters east of the fort, of which a larger group of four mostly elongated, rectangular buildings may have been a mansio , an inn with an inn and outbuildings, which offered travelers accommodation south of the ancient road to Aalen . Almost all rooms were hypocausted, had glass windows and were separated from each other by long courtyard walls. An oven was uncovered on one of the houses. From the wall thickness of the foundations, the excavators concluded that the rising walls had been built in half-timbered construction. Exceptionally in the find material were numerous glass vessels as well as built-in secondary use bricks, whose stamp of the fort Schirenhof lying I Raetorum Cohors came.

Around 100 meters to the southeast of the southeast corner of the fort was dug in 1885/86, 1892 and finally, before the site was built over, in 1981. A large number of post trenches and pits could be uncovered, which most likely had once been part of the early village. Noteworthy was a large, rectangular building 13 meters long and 9.4 meters wide with a 4.8 × 2 meters deep rectangular apse in the middle of the eastern rear wall. Due to stone robbery, only the lowest roll foundations of the building had survived. In front of the main entrance, on the western end wall, there was a wooden portico from which the four post holes of the load-bearing beams had been preserved. According to the findings, this portico formed a 2 × 9.4 meter porch. Due to the poor state of preservation, the western main entrance, located in the middle of the structure, could only be localized through a post pit and a rectangular cut sandstone. On the south wall of the building there was an attached, heatable, 4.4 × 5 meter large side room, which was aligned with the main facade. In a second construction phase, this room was extended by three meters to the east, so that the room, which could still be heated from the east, was now 7 × 5 meters in size.

The excavators agree on the ritual background of this building, especially since there are other architecturally identical temple findings from the Germanic and British provinces. The most important of the numerous finds from this temple are glass flasks covered with thread, a silver spoon, weapons, a bronze plate on which the human foot of a statuette was still preserved, as well as the head of a female stone sculpture that was excavated outside the temple in 1981 during leveling work came. By analyzing the finds, the building could be dated to the 2nd half of the 2nd century.

Of the other finds from the camp village, a completely preserved bronze statuette of a naked, helmeted war god Mars should be mentioned, which was recovered around 110 meters southeast of the Porta decumana in 1962 and became known nationwide. The 19.4 centimeter high figurine is placed in the 2nd / 3rd Dated 17th century AD. With Mars , other iron objects emerged from the ground.

During construction work, some unspecified cremation graves came to light west of the fort on the eastern slope of the Schlierbach. The real belonging to the place of settlement and fort cremation cemetery until now could not, however, be discovered.

Troop

The well-preserved Limeswall at Wp 12/46, northwest of Unterböbingen.

The cohort that once occupied the garrison has remained unknown due to the lack of written evidence on site, but according to the size of the camp it was a cohort of around 500 men of regular auxiliary troops. The archaeologist Hans Ulrich Nuber (1940-2014) suspected the Cohors VI Lusitanorum , but this has not yet been proven. It remains to be seen whether the troops stationed in Unterböbingen were purely an infantry unit or, which is more likely than other Limes forts, a partially mounted cohort. It was assumed that this unknown unit was previously located in the Urspring Castle . Origining was built to fortify the Alblimes and was abandoned after the border was moved forward to the Remstal area.

The fragment of a military diploma found in the northeastern Pratentura near a barrack 28 meters behind the northern front, 41 millimeters high and 34 millimeters wide, no longer provides any information about the troops in its traditional state:

Stro [bilo  ?
Descri] pt (um) et recog [nit (um) ex tabula aenea, quae f] ix (a) est Rom (ae) in [muro post templum divi] Aug (usti) [ad Minervam].

Translation:

Strobilus (?) ... Checked and certified according to the bronze plaque that is posted in Rome on the wall behind the temple of the deified Augustus at the Temple of Minerva.

Strobilus was the name of the soldier who received the diploma, probably after 134 AD, when he left the Roman army after 25 years of service.

Lost property

Many finds from the fort and vicus, such as the military diploma, are now in the Württemberg State Museum in the Old Castle in Stuttgart and in the Limes Museum in Aalen . The Jupiter statuette can be seen in the “Museum im Prediger ” in Schwäbisch Gmünd.

Monument protection

The Unterböbingen fort and the aforementioned ground monuments have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage as a section of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes since 2005 . In addition, the facilities are cultural monuments according to 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

Web links

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

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Dieter Planck: New excavations on the Limes , Small writings for knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany (Writings of the Limes Museum Aalen) 12, Gentner, Stuttgart 1975. P. 22.
  2. ↑ Dieter Planck: Neue Ausgrabungen am Limes , Small writings for knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany (Writings of the Limes Museum Aalen) 12, Gentner, Stuttgart 1975. P. 21.
  3. ↑ Bernd Becker: Felling dates for Roman construction timbers based on a 2350 year old South German oak tree ring chronology . In find reports from Baden Württemberg . Volume 6, Theiss, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 380621252X , pp. 369-386; at 48 ° 47 '51.11 "  N , 9 ° 45' 15.53"  O .
  4. ^ Wolfgang Czysz , Lothar Bakker: The Romans in Bavaria . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3806210586 , p. 123; at 48 ° 54 '57.97 "  N , 10 ° 7' 51.61"  O .
  5. ^ Dieter Planck: Archeology in Württemberg . Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3806205426 , p. 269.
  6. ↑ At 48 ° 50 '8.08 "  N , 10 ° 5' 4.99"  O .
  7. ↑ Marcus Junkelmann: The riders of Rome , Part II, von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1139-7 , p. 84 f.
  8. ↑ Hans Ulrich Nuber : Schwäbisch Gmünd in early historical times . In: History of the City of Schwäbisch Gmünd . Theiss, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8062-0399-7 , p. 37.
  9. ^ Anne Johnson (German adaptation by Dietwulf Baatz ): Römische Kastelle . von Zabern, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-8053-0868-X , p. 152.
  10. ^ Anne Johnson (German adaptation by Dietwulf Baatz ): Römische Kastelle . von Zabern, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-8053-0868-X , p. 168.
  11. ↑ Hans Ulrich Nuber: A Mars from Böbingen on the Rems . In: Germania 41 , 1963. p. 351.
  12. ↑ At 48 ° 47 '12.1 "  N , 9 ° 46' 36.9"  O .
  13. ^ Dieter Planck , Willi Beck: The Limes in Southwest Germany . 2nd completely revised edition, Theiss, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-8062-0496-9 , p. 116.
  14. ↑ Hans Ulrich Nuber: A Mars from Böbingen on the Rems . In: Germania 41 , 1963. pp. 350ff.
  15. ^ A b Philipp Filtzinger : Limes Museum Aalen , 2nd edition. Gentner, Stuttgart 1975, p. 44.
  16. ^ A b Hans Ulrich Nuber: Schwäbisch Gmünd in early historical times . In: History of the City of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Theiss, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8062-0399-7 . P. 38.