Church ruins St. Urban and Vincentius
The former church of St. Urban and Vincentius stood in Splügen in the Rhine Forest in the canton of Graubünden .
location
The church was on the old mule track to Sufers about 100 meters northeast of today's Reformed church and south of a small group of houses. The remains of a foundation wall have been preserved for a few meters below the street. Before the path was asphalted, the remains of the foundations of an east-facing church were visible on the path for 10 to 12 meters .
The construction of a new path in the late 1990s from the village up to the path to Splügen Castle would have destroyed the ruins. The results of the archaeological investigations resulted in the path being led in a slight arc around the remains of the wall.
history
Documents about the construction of the church are missing. Interpretations of the sparse historical sources by the art historian Erwin Poeschel and excavations by the archaeological service of the canton of Graubünden in 1998 allow only guesswork.
In the area of the mule track, two 90 centimeter high quarry stone walls running parallel to each other at a distance of 6 meters were excavated, the foundation of one wall stood on a grave. The type and purpose of the walls could not be determined.
An exploratory cut was made two meters west of the terracing wall. Remnants of the wall with painted plaster and mortar floor dyed red with bricks, as they are known from Carolingian sacred buildings, were exposed here.
It turned out that the visible walls were part of the foundation of the southeast side wall of the nave. Its continuation showed three construction phases, the oldest of which formed the approach of a semicircular apse . The younger ones delimited a choir in which remains of a wooden floor and two mortar floors were found. Remains of the wall of an extension were also found, probably a sacristy.
The results of the excavations suggest that the first church in Splügen was not built by the Walsers in the 13th or 14th century, as previously assumed , but was already in the 9th century. In a Urbar such a church or chapel is the property of the monastery Pfäfers listed. Pictures show the church of St. Urban and Vincentius in the first half of the 19th century. When and why it was abandoned is not known.
literature
- Alfred Liver, Archaeological Service Canton Graubünden: Annual Report 1998. pp. 47–50.
- Erwin Poeschel : Art monuments of the canton of Graubünden. Volume V, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1942, p. 260 f.