Castle Zurich

Reconstruction d. late antique fort Turicum
	E-publication “Zurich 1218 - The start of self-employment”
	Link to the picture; (please note copyrights )

Fort Zurich-Lindenhof
Alternative name	a) Turicum; b) Turegum ; c) Turico
limes	Danube-Iller-Rhein-Limes; ( Maxima Sequanorum , backward line)
Dating (occupancy)	Diocletian , Constantine or Valentine , ; 4th to 5th century. A.D.
Type	Cohort fort?
unit	unknown
size	4500 m²
Construction	stone
State of preservation	irregular floor plan, ; remains of the wall only partially excavated (northeastern foundation walls)
place	Zurich
Geographical location	683 245 / 247497 coordinates: 47 ° 22 '23 " N , 8 ° 32' 27" O ; CH1903: six hundred and eighty-three thousand two hundred and forty-five / 247497
height	425 m above sea level M.
Previous	Irgenhausen Fort (east)
Upstream	Fort Winterthur ( Vitudurum ) (north)

Location of Turicum on the DIRL

Findings sketch of the late Roman fort and Ottonian Palatinate

View of the remains of the east wall of the Roman fort, today one of the retaining walls of the Lindenhof plateau

Remains of Roman buildings under the Lindenhof: in the front cellar with walled-up window of a house, in the back the fort wall

The Zurich fort was part of the Roman fort chain of the late antique Danube-Iller-Rhine-Limes and is located in the area of the city of Zurich in the Swiss canton of Zurich .

The warehouse area is one of the oldest parts of the city. It was probably built as part of the fortification measures for the restored Rhine border by order of the emperors Diocletian (284–305), Constantine I (306–337) or Valentinian I (364–375). It is not known which unit provided the fort's occupation force. Even after the Alamanni conquered it at the beginning of the 5th century, it continued to exist. The site of the late Roman fortifications was used as a palace until the 11th century .

location

The fort stood on the Lindenhof in the center of the former Celtic oppidum Lindenhof and the subsequent Roman Vicus Turicum on the left bank of the Limmat , in today's old town of Zurich . In late antiquity , the fort was part of the administrative area of the Roman province of Maxima Sequanorum .

Surname

The name Turicum suggests a pre-Roman origin of the place name. Most likely, this is a derivative of the Celtic personal name Turos . The oldest written source that refers to a Castrum Turico is the Vita of Saints Felix and Regula from the late 8th century. In the Vita S. Galli about the missionary journey of Saint Columbans through Alemannia in 610 the place is mentioned as castellum Turegum .

development

In the year 15 BC In the course of the Alpine campaign of the Romans under the leadership of Augustus ' step-sons Drusus and Tiberius, the Alpine passes were secured. The Rhine (Rhenus) became the northern border of the Imperium Romanum . In the area of today's Switzerland ( Helvetia ), border security and a. Legion camps in Vindonissa ( Windisch ) and Augusta Raurica ( Augst / Kaiseraugst ) as well as a first smaller military base in Turicum . From 100 AD the fortress system of the Limes protected the northern border of the empire and the place temporarily lost its military importance. It now functioned as a customs post (statio Turicen [sis]) and a small trading and stage town on the Walensee –Zürichsee – Limmat – Rhine waterway , as the settlement was not on any major main road.

After the Alamanni invasion of what is now Switzerland in AD 260, Turicum regained its military importance. In the late 3rd or 4th century (330 AD?) A fort was built again as part of the construction work to fortify the Rhine border (rear line of the Danube-Iller-Rhine-Limes). The beginning of the 5th century marked the end of Roman rule in Switzerland. Around the year 402 AD, most of the border soldiers were withdrawn by the regent of the west, Stilicho , to fight the army of Goths under Alaric I, which had invaded Italy, and some border regions north of the Alps were cleared. The vicus and the fort were not completely abandoned and continued to exist for some time. Soon, however, advancing Alemannic tribes took possession of the land around Turicum . The settlement and the fort were destroyed, after which the Alemanni clans settled in the ruins.

With the founding of the Fraumünster Monastery in 853, a Carolingian and later an Ottonian palace was probably built on its foundation walls . The latter is first mentioned in a document in 1054. Very little archaeological evidence is available about the Carolingian Palatinate. The Ottonian Palatinate from 10/11. Century was one of the centers of the Duchy of Swabia and essentially consisted of a palace building and a chapel. In the 11th / 12th In the 18th century the complex was converted into a castle, which was last mentioned in 1172. It can no longer be proven with certainty whether the facility was destroyed according to plan after the Zähringer family died out in 1218 or whether it was used to extract building material.

Fort

The fort can only be partially ascertained from an archaeological point of view. The 4500 square meter, but very well fortified complex was probably equipped with up to ten towers and a two meter wide wall, which remained largely intact until the early Middle Ages. In the north and south it was broken through by two gates with only one passage. It remains unclear whether the remains of the fortification of the Oppidum Lindenhof were also included in the construction of the fort. The hilltop was leveled in post-Roman times; the fort wall now served to secure the new terrace and thus largely determined the current shape of the Lindenhof plateau. The wall, bound with extremely resistant lime mortar, was integrated into the northeast retaining wall and the foundations of the town houses around the Lindenhof and the Münsterhof in the late Middle Ages . As a result, part of the fort has been preserved to this day, along with some other wall remains that also date back to Roman times.

The successor building, an Ottonian royal palace, is somewhat better documented . This was at least 75 meters long and 13 meters wide, with an imperial hall of 31.2 × 11.4 meters and a chapel on the northwest corner. Remnants of the wall of this building came to light when the property "Zum Paradies" acquired by the Masonic Lodge "Modestia cum Libertate" at the southern end of Lindenplatz was demolished.

Note

In the so-called “Lindenhofkeller” near the Zurich Masonic Lodge “Modestia cum Libertate”, well-preserved building remains from Roman times, the Middle Ages and the early modern period can be viewed, and they are expertly explained on display boards. The key to the Lindenhofkeller can be reserved and collected from the building history archive of the City of Zurich (civil engineering office).

Monument protection

The fort area is a historical site within the meaning of the Swiss Federal Law on Nature Conservation and Heritage Protection of July 1, 1966, under federal protection. Unauthorized investigations and targeted collection of finds constitute a criminal act and are punishable by imprisonment of up to one year or a fine according to Art. 24.

literature

Dölf Wild et al .: City walls. A new image of the city fortifications of Zurich . Document for the exhibition in the Haus zum Rech, Zurich 6 February to 30 April 2004. (City history and urban development in Zurich. Writings on archeology, monument preservation and urban planning, 5). Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-905384-05-1 .
Andreas Motschi: Palatium imperiale. New findings on the younger royal palace on the Lindenhof in Zurich. In: Middle Ages, magazine of the Swiss Castle Association. 16, 2011/3, pp. 65-87.
Jörg Heiligmann: History of the Lake Constance area in the 3rd and 4th centuries. AD In: Norbert Hasler, Jörg Heiligmann, Markus Höneisen, Urs Leuzinger, Helmut Swozilek (eds.): In the protection of mighty walls, late Roman forts in the Lake Constance area . (Catalog for the exhibition in the Archaeological State Museum Baden-Württemberg, April 30, 2005 to November 1, 2005). Verlag Frauenfeld, ISBN 3-9522941-1-X , pp. 10-15.

Web links

Commons : Zurich - collection of images, videos and audio files

Turicum II website of the city of Zurich

Remarks

^ Andres Kristol: Zurich ZH (Zurich). In: Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses - Lexicon of Swiss municipality names - Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri (DTS | LSG). Center de dialectologie, Université de Neuchâtel. Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart / Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7193-1308-5 and Éditions Payot, Lausanne 2005, ISBN 2-601-03336-3 , pp. 992f.
↑ Jörg Heiligmann: 2005, pp. 10–15.
↑ Swiss Federal Law on Nature Conservation and Heritage Protection 1966 (PDF; 169 kB).

[gemeindenamen-1] Andres Kristol: Zurich ZH (Zurich). In: Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses - Lexicon of Swiss municipality names - Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri (DTS | LSG). Center de dialectologie, Université de Neuchâtel. Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart / Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7193-1308-5 and Éditions Payot, Lausanne 2005, ISBN 2-601-03336-3 , pp. 992f.

[2] Jörg Heiligmann: 2005, pp. 10–15.

[3] Swiss Federal Law on Nature Conservation and Heritage Protection 1966 (PDF; 169 kB).