Small fort Langendiebach

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Small fort Langendiebach
limes ORL NN ( RLK )
Route (RLK) Upper German Limes,
route 5
(eastern weather route)
Dating (occupancy) unsure
Type Small fort
unit unknown vexillatio
size 71.5 × 56.5 m (= 0.4 ha)
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation overbuilt
place Erlensee- Langendiebach
Geographical location 50 ° 10 '4.5 "  N , 8 ° 59' 8"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 10 '4.5 "  N , 8 ° 59' 8"  E
height 115  m above sea level NHN
Previous ORL 21: Fort Marköbel
(north)
Subsequently ORL 22: Rückingen Fort
(south)

The small fort Langendiebach was a Roman fort on the Wetterau line of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in what is now Langendiebach , a district of Erlensee in the Main-Kinzig district . Like many small forts, it was probably used to monitor a border crossing on a prehistoric path. Today nothing is visible of the system.

View of the former fort area (old cemetery Langendiebach). Today nothing is visible of the small fort.
Small fort Langendiebach after the excavations in 1893/94
Landwehrgraben (parallel to the course of the Limes) and information sign

location

Langendiebach lies on a small sand dune. The terrain slopes slightly south of the town center. A pre-Roman path ran here, coming from Bischofsheim via Hochstadt - Mittelbuchen and Bruchköbel , crossing the Limes at Langendiebach and leading towards Langenselbold along the Kinzig valley . Tombs from the Bronze and Hallstatt Periods near the fort and near the fort wall prove that it was a pre-Roman traffic route.

The proximity of only 1500 m to Rückingen Fort shows that the path still had a certain importance in Roman times, so that a separate small fort was necessary to monitor it.

The fort is now located under the Old Cemetery, Friedensstrasse and modern residential buildings and is no longer visible. The Limes ran about 70 m east of the fort almost exactly from north to south. Today the Landwehrgraben runs largely parallel (in the further course: Limesweg, Ronneburgstrasse and Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse south of Langendiebach).

investment

Excavations in the fort area took place in 1893/94 by the Reich Limes Commission . Due to the somewhat elevated location, a watchtower was initially sought. More recent investigations were not carried out due to extensive overbuilding.

The excavations produced a stone fort of 71.5 by 56.5 m, which was oriented towards the Limes. At that time, most of the stones had already erupted, and foundations only existed to a depth of 1 m below the surface. The 1 m wide foundation walls were rounded at the corners with a radius of 5 m. The fort had two circular trenches with a width of 4 and 5 m and a depth of 1.70 to 2.20 m. There was a 5 m wide embankment leaning against the wall inside.

Gates could only be detected on the narrow sides of the fort through interrupted foundations and trenches as well as a fill of gravel. The outer moat was uninterrupted on the west side, and there was probably a wooden bridge here. It could not be determined whether the fort had gates on the long sides, as the northern wall had already been completely destroyed by a road, the southern wall by an embankment.

Only a few statements could be made about the interior development due to the narrow excavation sections crossing at right angles. Half-timbered clay and charred plant remains were found right behind the heaped-up wall, which indicates that there were crew barracks. The archaeological findings in the core area of ​​the fort were largely destroyed in the modern stone robbery due to the sandy soil. The fragment of a brick plate of the Legio XXII Primigenia as well as fragments of window glass indicate the existence of buildings.

Due to the few finds, the small fort can only roughly be dated to the time of Emperor Trajan or Hadrian . As part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, the fort has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005 .

Limes course from the small fort Langendiebach to the Rückingen fort

The Limes runs in an approximately north-south direction east of the fort, parallel to today's Landwehrgraben . In some places it was verified by the Reichs-Limeskommission in 1893/94 between the small fort and the crossing over the Kinzig. A watchtower 5/8 was suspected between Langendiebach and Rückingen, but could not be proven by excavations.

See also

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ The description of the facility essentially follows the publication of these excavation results in The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roman Empire A 2 pp. 157–159 u. Plate 14.
  2. ^ Numbering of the Reichs-Limeskommission in the work The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roman Empire .