Fort Donnstetten
Map with all coordinates: | Fort Donnstetten | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name | Clarenna |
| limes | ORL NN ( RLK ) |
| Route (RLK) | Alblimes |
| Dating (occupancy) | around 85/90 AD to around 150/160 AD Vicus until around 259/260 AD |
| Type | Numerus fort |
| unit | unknown number or vexillation |
| size | about 50 m × 60 m = 0.3 ha |
| Construction | Wood and earth fort |
| State of preservation | invisible ground monument |
| place | Römerstein -Donnstetten |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 30 '35.5 " N , 9 ° 34" 10.5 " E |
| height | 840 m above sea level NHN |
| Previous |
Fort Gomadingen (west-southwest, Alblimes) Fort Dettingen (north-northwest, Lautertal-Limes ) |
| Subsequently | Origining Castle (east, Alblimes) |
The fort Donnstetten , the ancient Clarenna , was a Roman military camp of the Alblimes . It is located with the associated fort vicus as a ground monument in an undeveloped area of Römerstein -Donnstetten, a municipality in the Reutlingen district of Baden-Württemberg .
location
The fort is located on the "Hasenhäuslesberg", an elevation around 500 meters south of Donnstetten. North, in the direction of today's town center, the "rabbit Häusle mountain" drops steeply into a Maar boiler off.
In ancient times the camp was located here in a geographically and strategically important position. Together with a chain of other forts, it formed the "Alblimes", an interim border security of the Roman province of Raetia before the final expansion of the Raetian Limes .
The "Alblimesstraße" ran in this section from the Gomadingen fort, about 20 km to the west-southwest , via Münsingen in the direction of Donnstetten and from here continued via Nellingen to the east of Ad Lunam , the Urspring fort . East of Clarenna and south of Nellingen, the body of the road called “Hochstrasse” can be seen very well in the terrain and is still used today as a path.
Another road , coming from the north-northeast, coming from Grinario , from Kastell Köngen , and leading through the Lautertal via Dettingen , joins the Alblimesstraße at Clarenna . As far as Donnstetten , it was secured by the so-called Lautertal Limes , also known as the Sybillenspur, and presumably represented, at least for a time, a section of the so-called East Main Line , which led from Noviomagus ( Speyer ) to Ponione ( Faimingen Fort ). The monitoring of this neuralgic road junction was probably one of the tasks of the fort crew.
Research history
Between 1891 and 1904, smaller exploratory excavations were repeatedly carried out in the Donnstetten area . Here, however, only the civilian settlement could be localized and, in particular through the explorations of Donnstetten pastor Karl Gußmann, another Roman site on the "Hasenhäuslesberg" could be found, but not yet identified as the fort he was looking for.
It was only through archaeological aerial surveys that Philipp Filtzinger and Walter Sölter finally succeeded in 1975 in locating the fort that Robert Knorr had postulated as early as 1907 . No further excavations took place, so that today's level of knowledge is essentially based on the older soundings and aerial photographs.
The identity of the place of discovery with the Clarenna recorded on the Tabula Peutingeriana is very likely, but due to a lack of inscribed evidence, it is not entirely certain.
Fort
The fort at Donnstetten was surrounded on three sides by two circular ditches. On the north side, the ditch defense was suspended, as the steeply sloping terrain here represented a natural obstacle to the approach. A wood-earth wall behind it can be assumed, but has not been proven archaeologically. With its dimensions of 50 × 60 m (= 0.3 ha), the camp is one of the so-called numerus castles. Like almost all forts of this size , it offered space for a crew of 80 to 100 men, a number or a similarly large vexillation as a detachment of a larger auxiliary unit . Details of the troops stationed here are just as little known as details of the interior of the camp.
The dating of the Donnstetten military camp has not yet been established. It may have been built in the Domitian era, around AD 85 to 90. It could have lasted until the middle of the second century AD, around the years 150/160.
Due to the small size of the fortification, the relatively large distance to the vicus, the overdimensioned fort bath in relation to the assumed number of crews (see below) and the fact that such a weak unit is relatively isolated, the assumption has occasionally been made in the literature that a second camp could have been located in the vicinity of the numerus fort. The corresponding archaeological evidence for this has not yet been provided.
Vicus
The vicus of Clarenna, the civilian settlement to be found near every Roman military camp, in which members of the military, traders, craftsmen, innkeepers and other service providers settled, was around 500 m north of the fort, on the eastern edge of the present-day town in the corridor " Behind the stain ”. It was probably built around 85/90 AD, around the same time as the fort was built. According to the litter finds, the vicus is expected to extend no more than 350 m in a west-east and a maximum of 150 m in a north-south direction. So far only a well and the bathing building could be detected.
The bathing building, although excavated in 1903/1904 by the local pastor Dreher, was only identified as a thermal bath by Oscar Paret in 1931 . The building, which is strikingly large with its dimensions of 34 m by 31 m, has several construction phases in which it was partially redesigned. Three of its rooms were equipped with a hypocaust system. It may have been reduced in size at a non-datable point in its later building history and integrated into the building complex of a mansio or beneficiary station .
The vicus survived the end of the fort for around 100 years and was likely to have existed until the internal and external political and economic crisis of the empire around the middle of the 3rd century, at most until 259/260.
Monument protection, preservation of findings and what is found
The Donnstetten fort and the above-mentioned ground monuments are protected as cultural monuments under the Monument Protection Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (DSchG) . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, and accidental finds are reported to the monument authorities. The findings lie beneath the agricultural areas to the east and south of today's village. The material found so far was recorded in the magazines of the Württemberg State Museum in the Old Castle in Stuttgart and in the Pfarrscheuer local history museum in Römerstein-Donnstetten.
See also
literature
- Jörg Heiligmann : Römerstein-Donnstetten. Roman fort and civil settlement . In: Dieter Planck (Ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg. Theiss, Stuttgart, 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1555-3 , p. 278 f.
- Jörg Heiligmann: The fort Donnstetten, "Clarenna", municipality of Römerstein (district of Reutlingen) . In: Ders .: The "Alb-Limes. A contribution to the history of Roman occupation in Southwest Germany. Theiss, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8062-0814-X , p. 80 ff.
- Jörg Heiligmann: Römerstein-Donnstetten. Roman fort and civil settlement . In: Philipp Filtzinger, Dieter Planck and Bernhard Cämmerer (eds.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg. 3rd edition, Theiss, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-8062-0287-7 , p. 508 f.
- Friedrich Hertlein : The history of the occupation of the Roman Württemberg . In: Friedrich Hertlein, Oscar Paret , Peter Goessler (Ed.): The Romans in Württemberg. Part 1. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1928, pp. 40, 43, 95, 98, 102.
- Friedrich Hertlein and Peter Goessler: The streets and fortifications of the Roman Württemberg . In: Friedrich Hertlein, Oscar Paret, Peter Goessler (Ed.): The Romans in Württemberg . Part 2. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1930, pp. 217, 234, 238, 255, 260, 262.
- Oscar Paret: The Settlements of Roman Wuerttemberg . In: Friedrich Hertlein, Oscar Paret, Peter Goessler (Ed.): The Romans in Württemberg. Part 3. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1932, pp. 8, 58, 60, 67, 75, 86 f., 94, 98, 100, 129, 157, 184, 208, 215, 219, 225, 230, 295.
Remarks
- ^ Otto Braasch : aerial archeology in southern Germany . (Small writings on the knowledge of the history of Roman occupation in Southwest Germany, 30.) P. 90. Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart 1983.
- ↑ Oscar Paret: News from Sumelocenna-Rottenburg, Clarenna (?) - Donnstetten and Arae Flaviae-Rottweil. In: Germania . Bulletin of the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute . Vol. 15, p. 230 ff. Buchner, Bamberg 1931. Ders. 1932, p. 296. Furthermore Heiligmann 1990, p. 86 and Ders. 2005, p. 279.