Levefanum

Levefanum
limes	Lower Germanic Limes
Dating (occupancy)	a) Claudian to around 270 ; b) Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (?)
Type	Cohort fort
unit	a) Cohors Voluntariorum Civium Romanorum; b) Cohors I Thracum equitata
State of preservation	Warehouse destroyed; Vicus possibly still fragmentarily present in the ground, not visible
place	Wijk bij Duurstede / ; Buren- Rijswijk
Geographical location	51 ° 57 '45 " N , 5 ° 21' 10" E Coordinates: 51 ° 57 '45 " N , 5 ° 21' 10" E
Previous	Mannaricium (east)
Subsequently	Fectio (northwest)

Levefanum , the Rijswijk Castle (also known as Buren-Rijswijk Castle ), was an auxiliary Roman fort on the Lower Germanic Limes . The former military camp and the associated civilian settlement ( vicus ) were located in the area of Rijswijk, a village in the municipality of Buren in the Dutch province of Gelderland , immediately south of Wijk bij Duurstede , a city in the province of Utrecht .

Origin of name and location

Levefanum on the Tabula Peutingeriana between Carvo and Fletio

Levefanum in the course of the Lower Germanic Limes

The place between Carvo and Fletio is recorded on the Tabula Peutingeriana . The spelling Levefanum used there was derived mainly in Dutch research from Haeva Fanum , "Temple of Haeva ", a female Germanic deity. Deviating from these assumptions, the place name can initially be put as a duplicate of the place name Leufan , which has been handed down by Ptolemy when it is interpreted from Germanic . Here only supplemented with another e as a connecting vowel . The established Germanic etymology according to Scheungraber / Grünzweig points to a profane (moist) meadow instead of a sanctuary of a deity on which grass was cut. They put Leve- only possible to Germ. * Lewa- = “cut” and -fanum to Germ. * Fanja- = “Swamp, Moor” ( Fenn ) and compare, among other things, with Old Frisian fenne = “moist meadow”.

In the ancient topography, the fort was located on the left bank of the Kromme Rijn at the point where the Lek or a precursor river of the Lek branched off from the Kromme Rijn since the turn of the times . From the point of view of the Roman military, river branches were of great strategic importance. This and the fact that from this point a larger, inaccessible, swampy area began to the west, may explain the fact that the camps Mannaricium and Levefanum were relatively close to one another.

In today's geographical picture, the Levefanum site is in a floodplain between the city of Wijk bij Duurstede in the north and the village of Rijswijk in the south.

Research history

Roman ceramics were found north of Rijswijk as early as 1900 and 1915. Around 1950, the remains of massive oak beams set vertically into the ground were discovered in a bulge of the Kromme Rijn , which were probably the remains of a Roman bank fortification. Other Roman ceramics as well as weapons and other militaria were recovered from excavation work in 1979.

Finds, Findings, and History

Like the neighboring Mannaricium , Levefanum was also localized by dredging to extract sand. In the flood plain between Wijk bij Duurstede and Rijswijk, numerous finds from a clearly military context came to light, through which, among other things, the founding of the fort could be dated to the Claudian period , around the year 50 AD. It is possible that it was founded by Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo in the year 47. In addition to ceramics and building materials, the militaria were particularly striking. In addition to brooches and weapons, there were also a few helmets, one of which had the graffiti of the former owners, T. Allienus Martial (n) is and Statorius Tertius, as well as the centurion Antonius Fronto . The names suggest that these soldiers were Roman citizens , which indicates the possibility of stationing a Cohors civium Romanorum (cohort of Roman citizens) in the early days of the garrison location . For the period between 70 (end of the Batavian uprising ) and 83, the stationing of the Cohors I Thracorum equitata (1st partially mounted cohort of the Thracians ) is postulated on the basis of a brick with the stamp PRIMACORT .

The abandonment of the auxiliary fort is assumed to have occurred around the year 270 and is possibly related to the foundation of the Gallic Empire .

A few excavator finds lead to the assumption that the fort was already or was still used for military purposes in the late Roman period . Even a continuity into the early Middle Ages cannot be ruled out, so that Levefanum could have been one of the earliest germs of the medieval trading center Dorestad, where the battle between Pippin II and the Frisians took place around 690 .

Findings situation and where to find them

The traces of the fort are largely destroyed by the meandering Rhine and modern dredging. Remnants of the civil settlement, the vicus , may still be in the ground. Nothing of either is visible in the area. The finds from the camp and the vicus of Levefanum are in the Museum Dorestad in Wijk bij Duurstede and in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden .

literature

Julianus Egidius Bogaers : Wijk bij Duurstede - Levefanum . In: Julianus Egidius Bogaers and Christoph B. Rüger : The Lower Germanic Limes. Materials on its story . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7927-0194-4 , p. 67
Wilfried AM Hessing, Chris Sueur, Bram Jansen: Tussen Fectio en Levefanum. Op zoek naar de Romeinse militaire away in het Kromme Rijngebied . Vestigia, Amersfoort 2006, (= Vestigia rapporten), ISSN 1573-9406
Saskia G. van Dockum : The Dutch river basin . In: Tilmann Bechert and Willem J. H. Willems (eds.): The Roman border between the Moselle and the North Sea coast . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8062-1189-2 , p. 81
Willem Albertus van Es : Romeinse helmen uit de Rijn bij Rijswijk . In: Liber amicorum aan prof. dr. MW Heslinga . Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek, Amersfoort 1984
Willem Johannes Hendrik Verwers: Roman period settlement traces and cemetery at Wijk bij Duurstede . Reports van de Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek 25 (1975), pp. 93-132

Web links

Buren (Rijswijk-Gld) - Levefanum on cultuurwijzer.nl, an official website for the cultural heritage of the Netherlands (Dutch)
Jona Lendering: Rijswijk (Gld.) . In: Livius.org (English)

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Saskia G. van Dockum : The Dutch river basin . In: Tilmann Bechert and Willem J. H. Willems (eds.): The Roman border between the Moselle and the North Sea coast . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8062-1189-2 , p. 81.
^ Corinna Scheungraber, Friedrich E. Grünzweig: The old Germanic toponyms and un-Germanic toponyms of Germania. A handbook on its etymology using a bibliography by Robert Nedoma. Published by Hermann Reichert. (= Philologica Germanica 34). Fassbaender, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-902575-62-3 , pp. 206-209.
^ Julianus Egidius Bogaers : Wijk bij Duurstede - Levefanum . In: Julianus Egidius Bogaers and Christoph B. Rüger : The Lower Germanic Limes. Materials on its story . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7927-0194-4 , p. 67.
^ Official website of the Museum Dorestad, Wijk bij Duurstede .

[Dockum-1] A ^b Saskia G. van Dockum : The Dutch river basin . In: Tilmann Bechert and Willem J. H. Willems (eds.): The Roman border between the Moselle and the North Sea coast . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8062-1189-2 , p. 81.

[2] Corinna Scheungraber, Friedrich E. Grünzweig: The old Germanic toponyms and un-Germanic toponyms of Germania. A handbook on its etymology using a bibliography by Robert Nedoma. Published by Hermann Reichert. (= Philologica Germanica 34). Fassbaender, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-902575-62-3 , pp. 206-209.

[3] Julianus Egidius Bogaers : Wijk bij Duurstede - Levefanum . In: Julianus Egidius Bogaers and Christoph B. Rüger : The Lower Germanic Limes. Materials on its story . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7927-0194-4 , p. 67.

[4] Official website of the Museum Dorestad, Wijk bij Duurstede .