Small fort Stopfenreuth

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Small fort Stopfenreuth
Alternative name unknown
limes Upper Pannonia
section Route 2
Dating (occupancy) 1st century AD to?
Type Bridgehead fort?
unit unknown
size Enclosing wall:
south side 18.80 m,
NE side 15.90 m,
height 1.4 m,
width 120–140 cm,
rounded corner
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation Square system with rounded corners
surrounded by a ditch
place Engelhartstetten
Geographical location 48 ° 11 ′ 0 ″  N , 16 ° 53 ′ 0 ″  E hf
Previous Legion camp / Fort Carnuntum (west)
Subsequently Gerulata Fort (southeast)
Limes3.png
Sketch of the position of the Roman bridgehead
Small fort Stopfenreuth based on the findings from 1898
Wall remains of the small fort, photo from 1908
Rosskopfarm, old arm of the Danube near Stopfenreuth
Roman ship bridge, relief on the Marc Aurel column , 2nd century AD, Rome

The small fort at Stopfenreuth was part of the fortress chain on the middle Danube Limes in Austria. It is located in the federal state of Lower Austria , Gänserndorf district in the municipality of Engelhartstetten . Its ruins were also known in the region as Hungerstein or Thirst Ball , and it is also mentioned in documents as Veste Stopfenreuth or Ödes Schloss . Near the small fort, already on Slovak territory, there are still Roman facilities on the rock of Devín , which are also dealt with in this article.

location

The site is located north of Bad German-Altenburg directly in the nature reserve of Stopfenreuther Au , on the left bank of the Danube , on the right of today's bridge over the Danube at Hainburg near the mouth of the so-called Rosskopf arm, opposite the plateau "Am Stein", about three kilometers from the military camp Carnuntum away . It is still unclear whether the system was located on the northern or southern bank of the main stream in Roman times, as the course of the Danube has changed several times since then.

For example, the archaeologist Eduard Novotny (1862–1935) assumed, based on a thesis by E. Stauß,

“ ... that in Roman times the Danube should have had its course in that area many 100 m further north. "

and believes that the desolate castle can thus be defined not as the northern but rather the southern bridgehead of the Carnuntum camp. This assumption was in turn disputed by the state school inspector and local history researcher Anton Becker (1868–1955), who together with the state archivist Ernst Nischer von Falkenhof (1879–1961) tried to explain the location of the building in such a way that an east of the camp crossed the Danube Vehicle had to be driven continuously in this direction by the current. The archaeologist Gertrud Pascher and the prehistorian Herbert Mitscha-Märheim (1900–1976) also interpreted Stopfenreuth as the outskirts of a northern bridgehead. In connection with finds that were made in 1957 about 110 m northeast of the ruins, the archaeologist Hans G. Walter returned to the view already taken by Nowotny that the bridgehead fort of Stopfenreuth was once located on the south bank of the Danube. However, as long as the course of the current in the period in question has not been clarified beyond doubt, his colleague Erich Swoboda (1896–1964) generally considered any discussion of this matter to be obsolete.

Research history

For the archaeologist Eduard von Sacken (1825–1883), the design of the masonry was clearly Roman. On the basis of found brick stamps, including one of the legio XV Apollinaris , he believed to have found reliable evidence of the existence of a fort. This is also because at this point a crossing over the Danube was an obvious choice because of "the mountains on the right bank and the narrow width of the river" , he interpreted the facility as the remains of a fortified bridgehead. Extensive wall sections are said to have been visible until 1860. Despite these findings, it took 40 years until, in 1896, a new finding by the Central Commission for Research and Conservation of Art and Historical Monuments under the archaeologist Wilhelm Kubitschek (1858–1936) was made, but this was interrupted again due to the rapidly rising water level had to.

In the years 1898 and 1900, the Limes Commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences under the direction of Maximilian von Groller-Mildensee (1838–1920) continued the investigations. Groller-Mildensee found the site sunk in alluvial sand, covered by water and overgrown with trees. At that time, however, he was able to see the remains of the wall when the water level was very low and partly to free them from alluvial sand. The shallow river bed, which was visible up to about 30 meters upstream, was littered with stones, continuous walls or even only traces of it were no longer recognizable. The remaining wall remnants were partly in the sandy river bed or in the 1.50 to two meter high bank, the area of ​​which they still slightly towered over. On the west and north-west side they were surrounded by a trench-like depression in which part of the foundation base and part of the rising wall stood. On the north side, the wall gradually disappeared again in the alluvial sand and was completely overgrown by vegetation. In the interior there were wall fragments, concrete blocks, etc.

The walls were measured and documented. The ruin consisted of two straight walls, connected by a rounded corner. The southern visible part, 18.80 meters long, protruded only a few centimeters from the sandy soil for a length of five meters and then rose abruptly inland to 1.50 meters. Here you could also see the base approach. After the bend, a wall joined again (15.90 meters long); this was partly freed from the shore sand, but afterwards too heavy tree cover prevented a more thorough investigation. Around eight meters further a foundation pit could be observed, which was filled with broken walls and brick rubble. A follow-up was no longer possible because the wall disappeared under an embankment. Remnants of intermediate walls were still visible in the interior.

Groller-Mildensee also found the unequal width of the walls to be remarkable, at the curved corner only 0.90 meters as opposed to 1.20 and 1.40 meters for the straight walls. The inner walls were 0.77 to 0.90 meters thick. It was not possible to clarify whether the masonry was on pilots because of repeated groundwater pushing in; it also prevented further digging under the fragments of the wall in the river bed. The floor level could be determined by means of short concrete lines in two corners of the wall, it was 0.14 to 0.34 meters above the normal water level of the Danube at that time. So they would have been inundated immediately, even if there was only a slight flood, if the Danube had flowed past this facility in Roman times as close as it did at that time (1900).

The surroundings of the “barren castle” (alluvial forests) were also examined on both banks of the Rosskopf arm over a length of one to two kilometers for traces of a causeway, other fortifications or other buildings, but nothing of the kind was found. Since there were also opposing fortifications at the Aquincum and Bononia camps, Groller-Mildensee supported the assumption that this was the location of the opposing fort in Carnuntum .

In 1957 Hans G. Walter was able to recover some ceramic shards, terra sigillata , bones and brick fragments about 110 meters northeast of the castle ruins . The site was in Roman times on the south bank of the Danube. The finds were handed over to the Lower Austrian State Museum.

Fort

From the fort, the remains of a square, very massive tower and a smaller building were allegedly still visible until the first half of the 19th century. During the investigations by the Limes Commission, only the walls in the north-western area of ​​the fort area were preserved, while the greater part of the complex was washed away by the Danube over time. In the north-west area, the fence was also preserved up to a height of around 1.4 m. The corner was rounded. In front of the wall there was also a shallow ditch.

Function and chronological order

The fort's crew monitored the traffic here and, above all, the crossing of the Amber Road over the river (there may have been a ship bridge here ). This reached the Danube at Carnuntum and extended from here to Scarbantia ( Sopron ), where it met the Limes Road from Vindobona , and then continued to the Colonia Claudia Savaria ( Szombathely ) junction , from where Arrabona ( Győr ), Aquincum ( Budapest ) and Sopianae ( Pécs ) and subsequently to Poetovio ( Ptuj ) and Emona ( Ljubljana ) as well as Aquileia . Although a bridgehead on the left bank of the Danube had " a certain probability " for Groller-Mildensee , he considered such a bridgehead directly opposite the Carnuntum legionary camp to be more plausible. Wilhelm Kubitschek also seemed to tie in with these remarks when he wrote that " ... not the time of construction, but the purpose of the building has not remained undisputed ".

In the end, however, the research largely adopted and largely recognized Sacken’s assessment. Although the results of the investigations were able to prove the Roman origin of the complex, no indications whatsoever have been found for an exact dating.

Limes course from the small fort at Stopfenreuth to the fort Gerulata

ON / name Description / condition
Watchtower and Germanic prince seat of Devín In the area of ​​south-western Slovakia one encounters ruler's residences in the Barbaricum (collective term for free tribal territories on the northern bank of the Danube) based on Roman models . The oldest Roman building traces from the Augustan period were uncovered in Bratislava-Devín. The castle rock of Devín is located directly at the breakthrough of the Danube through the Carpathian Arch and the confluence of the March into the Danube and belongs to the cadastral municipality of Bratislava - Devín . On its northern side, the Devín rock is flanked by the Devínska Kobyla (Theben Kogel) massif . A Roman watchtower and observation post as well as a Germanic princely seat have been located here since the first centuries AD.

The first archaeological excavations in the medieval castle complex took place around 1913. In the interwar period, they were continued from 1921 to 1922 and 1933 to 1938. After the Second World War, brief excavations took place from 1950 to 1956. Systematic research began in 1965 and continues to this day. The finds prove the settlement of the castle rock from the Stone Age. The oldest finds from Roman times are sigillata fragments from the Augustan and Tiberian times, so-called Arretian sigillata (30 BC to 20 AD). Coins, fibulae and ceramics were also found. Traces of the stone foundations of a wooden tower can be dated to the last decade before Christ and the first two decades after Christ.

To date, a total of twelve settlement objects have been discovered on Devín, four of which are stone buildings. In the inner courtyard of the medieval castle was a four-room building with an apse, which was probably built for a local Germanic magnate. The building is dated to the 3rd century (Severan dynasty) with the last renovation during the reign of Emperor Valentinian I (364–375). A building, interpreted as a Christian church, as well as earth fortifications probably also date from the 4th century AD.

View of the Devín rock at the confluence of the Danube and March rivers

See also

literature

  • Kurt Genser : The Austrian Danube Limes in Roman times. A research report. (=  The Roman Limes in Austria 33), Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1989, ISBN 3-7001-0785-4 , ISBN 3-7001-0783-8 , pp. 661–663.
  • Maximilian von Groller-Mildensee : The "barren castle" on the Danube. (=  The Roman Limes in Austria 1), 1900, pp. 87–92.
  • Manfred Kandler (Ed.): The Roman Limes in Austria. A guide. 2nd Edition. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1989, ISBN 3-7001-0785-4 , p. 234 ff.
  • Herbert Mitscha-Märheim : Roman building remains and coins in northern Lower Austria. In the yearbook for regional studies of Lower Austria. New episode 37, 1967, pp. 1–12 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
  • Julius Schinagl: Brief History of Stopfenreuth , Hainburg 1922.
  • Marlies and Vojislaw Vujowic: The Limes, from the North Sea to the Black Sea. Volume 2, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2008, ISBN 978-3-85129-582-5 , pp. 382-383.
  • Hans G. Walter: Roman finds in Stopfenreuth. In: Pro Austria Romana 7. 1957, p. 23.
  • Katarina Harmadyova: Devin Castle. Military post. In: Verena Gassner / Andreas Pülz (ed.): The Roman Limes in Austria. Guide to the archaeological monuments , publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-7001-7787-6 , pp. 292–295.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Walther Brauneis : Die Schlösser im Marchfeld , Lower Austria Pressehaus, Vienna, St. Pölten 1981, ISBN 3-85326-617-7 , p. 24.
  2. ^ Eduard Novotny (Numismatic Appendix), Friedrich von Kenner (Epigraphic Appendix), E. Bormann: The excavations in the camp at Carnuntum 1908–1911, Verlag Alfred Hölder, Vienna, 1914, p. 163 f.
  3. ^ Johann Oehler: The Romans in Lower Austria. In: 21st annual report of the Girls' Obergymnasium Vienna VI, Rahlgasse 4. 1912/13, p. 20; Ernst Nischer von Falkenhof, Herbert von Mitscha-Märheim: The prehistoric settlements on the Braunsberg near Hainburg ad Donau. In: Research and Progress 8, 1932, p. 238; András Graf: Overview of the ancient geography of Pannonia. Institute for Coin Studies and Archeology at the Peter Pázmány University, Budapest 1936, p. 130.
  4. ^ Hugo Hassinger, Karl Lechner (Ed.): Anton Becker. Selected Writings. With a bibliography. For his 80th birthday. Phönix Verlag, Vienna 1948. p. 329; Note p. 55.
  5. ↑ 1932, p. 238
  6. ^ Gertrud Pascher: Roman settlements and roads in the Limes area between Enns and Leitha . In: The Roman Limes in Austria 19 (1949), p. 22.
  7. ↑ 1965-1967, p. 2; see. also Werner Jobst: Provincial capital Carnuntum. Austria's largest archaeological landscape. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-215-04441-2 . P. 84.
  8. ^ Hans G. Walter: Roman finds in Stopfenreuth. In: Pro Austria Romana 7 , 1957, p. 23.
  9. ^ Erich Swoboda: Carnuntum: Seine Geschichte und seine Denkmäler , 4th revised and expanded edition, Böhlaus Verlag, Graz / Cologne 1964, p. 253
  10. ^ Eduard v. Sacken: The Roman city of Carnuntum, its history, remains and the monuments of the Middle Ages in their place , Vienna; 1853, p. 337 ff .; Eduard v. Sacken: Catechism of architectural styles or teaching of architectural styles from the oldest times to the present, together with an explanation of the art expressions occurring in the catechism , Weber, Leipzig, 1876, p. 323 ff.
  11. ↑ Cf. also Friedrich von Kenner : Die Römerorte in Nieder-Oesterreich. In: Yearbook of the Association for Regional Studies of Lower Austria 2, 1868–1869, p. 153. 213; ders. Noricum and Pannonia. An investigation into the development, importance and the system of the Roman defense institutions in the central Danube countries. In: Reports and communications from the Alterthums-Verein zu Wien. 11, 1870, p. 93; E. Schmidel: Excursion to Carnuntum on August 8, 1880. Dedicated to the participants by the Anthropological Society in Vienna. Hölder, Vienna 1889, p. 3.
  12. ↑ See also Carl Tragau: The fortifications of Carnuntum. In: Archäologische-Epigraphische Mitteilungen 20, 1897, pp. 173–203, here: p. 174; Wilhelm Kubitschek (1899), p. 1603; Maximilian von Groller-Mildensee: Topography of the area around Carnuntum. In: The Roman Limes in Austria 1. Hölder, Vienna 1900, p. 87; Carnuntum 1885-1910. On the 25th anniversary of the “Carnuntum” association , Vienna 1911, p. 3.
  13. ^ Maximilian von Groller-Mildensee: Topography of the area around Carnuntum. In: The Roman Limes in Austria 1. Hölder, Vienna 1900, p. 92; see. also András Graf: Overview of the ancient geography of Pannonia. Institute for Coin Studies and Archeology of the Peter Pázmány University, Budapest 1936, p. 81.
  14. ↑ On October 4, 1898 the mirror was 0.73 meters, on October 17 it was 0.53 meters, i.e. s. 2.69 meters or 2.49 meters below the normal level of the Danube.
  15. ^ Hans G. Walter in: Find reports from Austria 7, reports 1956–1960. (1971), p. 112; see. also Hans G. Walter: Roman finds in Stopfenreuth. In: Pro Austria Romana 7 , 1957, p. 23
  16. ^ Maximilian von Groller-Mildensee: Topography of the area around Carnuntum. In: The Roman Limes in Austria 1. Hölder, Vienna 1900, p. 92; see. also András Graf: Overview of the ancient geography of Pannonia. Institute for Coin Studies and Archeology of the Peter Pázmány University, Budapest 1936, p. 81.
  17. ^ Wilhelm Kubitschek, Salomon Frankfurter : Guide through Carnuntum. Austrian Archaeological Institute, Vienna 1923, p. 133.
  18. ↑ Manfred Kandler: Legion camp and Canabae of Carnuntum. In: Carnuntum. In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World II 6. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1977, p. 691.