Small fort old hunting lodge

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Small fort old hunting lodge
limes ORL - ( RLK )
Route (RLK) Upper German Limes
Route 3
Western Taunus
Dating (occupancy) probably from the middle of the 2nd century
to AD 259/260 at the latest.
Type Small fort
unit unknown vexillatio
size around 650 m²
Construction stone
State of preservation preserved
place Arnoldshain Hegewiese
Geographical location 50 ° 14 ′ 40.5 "  N , 8 ° 29 ′ 34.6"  E
height 678  m above sea level NHN
Previous ORL 10: Feldberg Fort (southwest)
Subsequently Heidenstock small fort (northeast)
KK old hunting lodge

The small fort Altes Jagdhaus was a Roman military camp on the western Taunus route (route 3) of the Upper German Limes , which was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2005 . The ground monument, which is still very well visible in the terrain above ground, is located southeast of Arnoldshain- Hegewiese, a district of the Schmitten community in the Hessian Hochtaunuskreis . The current name derives from a hunting lodge that was built within the fort in the 16th century.

location

The small fort is located in the densely forested areas of the Hochtaunuskamm ridge, just under three kilometers as the crow flies northwest of the Großer Feldberg and a good one kilometer southeast of Hegewiese, a residential area in the Schmitten district of Arnoldshain, which is located separately in the forest. It is 678  m above sea level. NN , a good 300 meters east of the Taunus Pass on Sandplacken , with which the 3004 state road leading from Oberursel to Schmitten overcomes the Taunus ridge between the "Mittelberg" ( 715  m above sea level ) of the Feldberg massif and the Kolbenberg ( 683.9  m above sea level ) and where the so-called “Hochtaunusstraße” and “Siegfriedstraße” meet with Landesstraße 3004. The Limes watchtower Wp 3/53 is believed to be at the top of the pass. In the area of ​​the small fort, the view of the Barbaricum in front of the Limes is strategically favorable. The adjacent watchtowers can also be viewed.

Research history

The small fort, which had already been documented by Carl Rossel and Karl August von Cohausen , was archaeologically excavated in the summer of 1893 by Louis Jacobi , the responsible route commissioner of the Reich Limes Commission (RLK) .

In the 1930s, the surrounding wall of the fort was largely exposed and was still up to a meter high. In the Limeswerk published in 1936, however, it is pointed out that the wall “recently fell outwards in many places”. In 2009 the facility was renovated at a cost of 60,000 euros. The remains of the Roman ramparts were preserved by filling in the earth. The foundation walls of the hunting lodge received a secure concrete foundation and were fixed with mortar. This means that the floor plan of the early modern building is recognizable for the visitor.

  • Remains of the Roman fortifications with the foundations of the hunting lodge, 2011

  • Foundation walls of the hunting lodge after the renovation in 2009

  • Limes at the watchtower Wp 3/54

Building history

Presumably the fortification was built around the middle of the second century AD, possibly to strengthen the border line afterwards. The small fort has a slightly trapezoidal floor plan and measures 26 (north side) × 27 (south side) × 24.2 meters (west and east side). The surrounding wall has rounded corners and was 1.7 meters thick on the north side and 2.2 to 2.3 meters thick on all other sides. As a mortar-free dry masonry made of roughly worked rubble stones, the wall was moved like a binder. In many cases this was done in regular layers, but sometimes without a recognizable association. Larger blocks of up to 0.60 meters in length and 0.30 meters in height were processed at the corners. The stone material used consisted of Taunus quartzite . With its only gate, the fort faced north, towards the Limes. This entrance consisted of a simple wall passage - without recessed cheeks or superstructures - 3.30 meters wide, which was shifted about one meter from the central axis of the camp to the east. The front of the fort, which was not parallel to the Limes, but slanted, was nine meters with its northwest corner and 14 meters with its northeast corner from the crown of the border wall. There does not seem to have been a circumferential ditch.

Nothing is known about the occupation of the small fort, presumably the vexillatio of a neighboring larger auxiliary unit or legion . Possibly it was under the control of the Saalburg Castle .

Finds

The finds of the Imperial Limes Commission include a denarius from the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211), a fragment of an arched brooch made of white metal , iron nails and ceramic shards like the handle of an amphora .

Old hunting lodge

Probably in the 16th century a hunting lodge of the Markgenossenschaft Hohe Mark, 7 meters wide and 10.7 meters long, was built within the Roman fortification . The use was probably made by the "Waldbote", an office that was hereditarily bound by the Landgraves of Hesse-Homburg . This office secured some privileges, such as the chairmanship of the assembly of the High Marks or the right to start hunting three days earlier than other marketers. The walls of this building were made entirely of mortar brick, and the floor of the main room was also covered with quartzite slabs. It had a fireplace and walled-in seats in the corners. A storage cellar was laid out in the floor under the adjoining room.

Limes course between the small fortifications Altes Jagdhaus and Heidenstock

From the small fort Altes Jagdhaus to the small fort Heidenstock, the Limes runs exclusively through the densely forested area of ​​the Taunus ridge. It drops a total of almost 70 meters. Due to the geological and topographical conditions, it has the special feature in this area that in some sections of the route, a stone wall replaced the trench in the quartzite rock that was difficult to excavate, the excavation of which was usually used to fill the wall. This wall had an average thickness of two and a half meters and was made as a dry stone wall with quartzite rubble. The palisade moat, on the other hand, was also present throughout these sections of the Limes.

Traces of the Limes structures between the Altes Jagdhaus fort and the Heidenstock fort.
ORL Name / place Description / condition
KK Small fort old hunting lodge see above
Wp 3/54 Presumed, but not archaeologically proven, tower site.
Wp 3/55 "Blade head"
Wp 3/55
The tower site of a wooden and a stone tower documented by Rossel and Cohausen, which was examined by the commission under Jacobi in 1894.

The wooden tower was surrounded by a 1.2 m deep, 12 m diameter trench and an eight meter wide wall. In the center of the system there were four large post pits , 1.2 m deep, broken into the rock , which formed a slightly irregular square with sides 4.5 m to 5.0 m. The Limes wall cut through the northern half of the wooden tower, while the palisade led around the tower in a wide arc.

Reconstructed foundations of the stone tower of WP 3/55
The stone tower was about 22 m southeast of the wooden tower. It had a square floor plan with a side length of 5.6 m. On the east side, the rising masonry was 90 cm to 95 cm thick up to a height of about 1.4 m. Then it jumped on the outside as well as on the inside and tapered to a thickness of 65 cm to 75 cm. On all other sides of the tower, on the other hand, the wall did not taper down to a determined residual height of a maximum of two meters. In places on the outside of the tower the white plaster painted with red dummy joints could still be seen. On the north side - 25 cm above the tamped floor of the interior - there was a 75 cm wide entrance. The distance from the tower to the Limes wall was 21 m, from the palisade moat it was 32 m away.

The location of the tower was optimally chosen. From there the view extended to the “Stannheimer Grund” and the upper “Erlenbachtal”.

Wp 3/56 Presumed, but not archaeologically proven, tower site.
KK Heidenstock small fort see main article Small fort Heidenstock

Monument protection

The small fort Altes Jagdhaus and the adjacent Limes facilities have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage as a section of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes since 2005 . In addition, they and the old hunting lodge are ground monuments in terms of the Hessian Monument Protection Act . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities.

See also

literature

  • Dietwulf Baatz : The Roman Limes. Archaeological excursions between the Rhine and the Danube. 4th, completely revised and enlarged edition. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7861-2347-0 , p. 133
  • Dietwulf Baatz and Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann: The Romans in Hesse. Licensed edition of the 1982 edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , p. 391
  • Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey (Hrsg.): The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches / Abt. A, Vol. 2.1. The routes 3 to 5. Petters; Heidelberg, Berlin and Leipzig 1936, pp. 115–118 as well as plate 8, figs. 4 and 5.
  • Christian Fleer: Typification and function of the small buildings on the Limes . In: Egon Schallmayer (Ed.): Limes Imperii Romani. Contributions to the specialist colloquium “World Heritage Limes” November 2001 in Lich-Arnsburg . Saalburg, Bad Homburg v. d. H. 2004, ISBN 3-931267-05-9 , (= Saalburg-Schriften, 6), pp. 75-92
  • Margot Klee : The Roman Limes in Hessen. History and sites of the UNESCO World Heritage. Pustet, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7917-2232-0 , pp. 98f.
  • Margot Klee: The Limes between Rhine and Main. Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0276-1 , p. 76 f.

Web links

Commons : Kleinkastell Altes Jagdhaus  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Margot Klee : The Roman Limes in Hesse. History and sites of the UNESCO World Heritage. Pustet, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7917-2232-0 , p. 97.
  2. ^ Carl Rossel: The Roman border defense in the Taunus . Limbarth, Wiesbaden 1876, p. 51 f.
  3. ^ Karl August von Cohausen: The Roman border wall in Germany. Military and technical description of the same . Kreidel, Wiesbaden 1884, pp. 130, 26 and plate 12, fig. 3.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey (ed.): The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreich / Abt. A, Vol. 2.1. The routes 3 to 5. Petters; Heidelberg, Berlin and Leipzig 1936, p. 39 and plate 8, fig. 6; P. 116.
  5. ^ Taunus Zeitung of November 3, 2009.
  6. ↑ a b W p = W oh p east, watch tower. The number before the slash denotes the Limes section, the number after the slash denotes the respective watchtower.
  7. ^ Margot Klee: The Limes between Rhine and Main . Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0276-1 , p. 76.
  8. ↑ Dietwulf Baatz , Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (ed.): Die Römer in Hessen , Theiss, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3806202672 , p. 391.
  9. ↑ "Waldboten", also "Waldmeister" were former march officials.
  10. ↑ ORL = numbering of the Limes structures according to the publication of the Reich Limes Commission on the O bergermanisch- R ätischen- L imes
  11. ↑ KK = unnumbered K linseed K astell.
  12. ↑ At 50 ° 14 '41.64 "  N , 8 ° 29' 42.39"  O .
  13. ^ Carl Rossel: The Roman border defense in the Taunus . Limbarth, Wiesbaden 1876, p. 49.
  14. ^ Karl August von Cohausen: The Roman border wall in Germany. Military and technical description of the same . Kreidel, Wiesbaden 1884, pp. 124 and 129 and plate 15, fig. 5.
  15. ↑ At 50 ° 14 '54.32 "  N , 8 ° 30' 10.52"  O .
  16. ↑ At 50 ° 14 '54.03 "  N , 8 ° 30' 10.98"  O .
  17. ↑ At 50 ° 15 '4.01 "  N , 8 ° 30' 29.6"  O .
  18. ↑ 50 ° 15 '13.57 "  N , 8 ° 30' 46.4"  E