Fort Oberscheidental

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Fort Oberscheidental
limes ORL 52 ( RLK )
Route (RLK) ORL route 10
Neckar-Odenwald-Limes
Odenwald line
Dating (occupancy) trajanic
up to max. 159
Type Cohort fort
unit a) Cohors III Delmatarum
b) Cohors I Sequanorum et Rauracorum equitata
size 153 × 137 m = 2.1 ha
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation Building remains (Porta principalis dextra) and traces of terrain
place Mudau- Scheidental
Geographical location 49 ° 30 ′ 23 "  N , 9 ° 9 ′ 10"  E
height 511  m above sea level NHN
Previous ORL 51 Fort Schloßau (north)
Subsequently Small fort Robern (south)

The Oberscheidental fort was a Roman cohort fort of the older Odenwald line of the Neckar-Odenwald-Limes . Today's ground monument is located on the south-eastern edge of the center of Scheidental , a district of the Baden-Württemberg community of Mudau in the Odenwald .

location

Site plan (excavation 1895)
Floor plan and sections (excavation 1895)
Exterior view of the Porta Principalis Dextra
(status: February 2011)
Exterior view of the Porta Principalis Dextra
(status: February 2011)
Right tower of the Porta Principalis Dextra and step of the fort area
(status: February 2011)

The high plateau on which the garrison was stationed forms the watershed between the Main and Neckar. It is the headwaters of the Elz , the Galmbach and the Reisenbach, which flow to the Neckar, and the Devil's Blade which flows into the Main. In the ancient topography, Elz and Teufelsklinge were natural connections to the unoccupied Germania, while Galmbach and Reisenbach led into the interior of the empire. While the numerus fort in Schloßau may have been sufficient to protect the lesser devil's blade, the cohort in Scheidental was considered necessary to monitor the wider and easily accessible Elz valley.

In today's townscape, the fort is located east of the town center, in the "Burgmauer" area, a meadow only in the west that is partially built up between the town center and the cemetery, south of the "Kastellstrasse". The praetorial front (front) borders the cemetery, the left side front lies under the road to Differential. The fort thermal baths are located about 41.50 m from the south-west corner of the camp, on the other side of "Eberbacher Straße" (L 524).

Research history

The fort area had been known as the site of Roman relics since the first half of the 19th century. The Buchen Antiquities Association expressed initial assumptions about the military character in 1863. However, no practical excavations resulted from these considerations , since at that time, following the hypotheses of Christian Ernst Hanßelmann and Johann Friedrich Knapps , the Limes was assumed to be on a line running from Schloßau via Mudau to Osterburken. Only through the efforts of the private scholar Karl Christ (1841-1927) and the Mannheimer Altertumsverein was the area south of Schloßau examined more closely by the Hessian-Baden Limes Commission from 1880 onwards. The cohort fort could already be located on July 1, 1880. The first excavations were carried out in 1883, followed by the restoration of the Porta Principalis Dextra in 1886 and further investigations inside the fort. Finally, in 1895, the additional excavations were carried out by the Reich Limes Commission.

Findings

Fort

Porta principalis dextra and wall cross-section
(excavation 1895)

The camp follows the usual time scheme of the entire older Odenwald line, so it was occupied from the Trajan period until 159 at the latest. Founded as a wood and earth warehouse under Trajan, in the Hadrianic period with a dry stone wall and between 140 and 150 with a mortar wall. Assumptions that its origins could go back to Domitian times could not be archaeologically confirmed. In general, only one single construction phase could be definitively proven through excavations. It is a stone fort of around 2.1 hectares in size, built from the red sandstone typical of the region.

The fort had an approximately rectangular floor plan. The length of the Praetorial Front is 134.5 m, that of the Dekumat Front (rear front) 137 m. The northern side flank is 152 m long, the southern 153 m. The corners of the fort wall were rounded with a radius of about 16 m. The foundation of the defensive wall was 1.60 m wide and consisted of mortared chunks of red sandstone. It rested on a mortarless roller layer. The rising masonry jumped back on the inside and outside and was 1.30 m thick at the bottom and 1.20 m at the top. At the rounded corners it was up to 1.40 m thick. It was constructed as shell masonry. The outer bowls consisted of carefully crafted, horizontally layered stone blocks from 40 cm to 65 cm long, 22 cm to 25 cm high and 20 cm to 30 cm deep. In the core there was not the expected opus caementitium , but sandstone quarry connected with lime mortar.

All corners of the fort were reinforced with towers, around the fort there was a pointed moat one and a half meters deep and six meters wide as an obstacle to the approach. Immediately behind the fort wall was a 5.5 m to 7.5 m wide earth wall that supported the battlement. At its foot, the wall was bounded by the 3.8 m wide via sagularis (Lagerringstrasse). Of the four gates, which are also provided with towers, the Porta Praetoria faced east, towards the Limes, which was only about 25 m away. The south-facing Porta principalis dextra was best preserved, it was exposed and preserved.

From the interior, the Principia (staff building) with the flag sanctuary ( Aedes or Sacellum ), a small bathing building and, in the southern part of the Praetentura (front storage area), another large building could be located. The Principia covered an area of ​​52.80 m by 41.70 m, on the back the flag sanctuary jumped 3.10 m out of the wall. The sacellum was rectangular and consisted of two different rooms. A basement under the Sacellum , as was customary for accommodating the troop coffers, could not be found in Oberscheidental. The courtyard of the Principia was around 21 m wide and paved throughout. The small "bathing building B" consisted of only two rooms and contained a single water basin. The large "Building C" took up an area of ​​10.80 m by 20.41 / 20.75 m. Due to the accumulated cultural waste there, it is probably a residential building that was addressed as the praetorium (the commandant's home). But a horreum (granary) cannot be ruled out at this point in the camp.

Thermal baths, vicus and burial grounds

Traces of the fort vicus (civil village) were found to the west of the camp , the fort bath was 41.50 m southwest of the south-west corner of the camp. Its southeast corner was completely destroyed in the first half of the 19th century when the road to Eberbach was built. The floor plan of the thermal baths could still be fully documented during the investigations by the Reich Limes Commission. The facility took up an area of ​​20.40 m (north side) by 34.35 m (east side).

Occupancy

Brick
stamp of COH (ors) III DAL (matarum),
fort found in 1895

The auxiliary troop fort Oberscheidental could be clearly assigned to two different cohorts (about 480 men each) following one another . Initially the Cohors III Delmatarum (3rd Dalmatian cohort) was located here , which was stationed in Upper Germany around 88/89 and reached Oberscheidental via intermediate stays in Rottweil (Arae Flaviae) and Wiesbaden ( Aquae Mattiacorum ) . When she was moved to Fort Rückingen at the Wetterau-Limes around 120 , she was replaced by the Cohors I Sequanorum et Rauracorum equitata (1st partially mounted cohort of the Sequaner and Rauracer ). The latter was commanded around 159 with the shifting of the Limes to the east into Fort Miltenberg-Altstadt .

State of preservation

Clear traces of the fort can still be seen in the area, the preserved Porta principalis dextra is open. From the vicus and the fort bath, however, nothing is perceptible. Both are likely to have been severely disrupted by modern development, particularly by the construction of the road to Eberbach.

Limes course between the Oberscheidental fort and the Robern small fort

From Robern to the next Roman fortification, the small fort Robern, the Limes maintains its dead straight alignment in an almost southerly direction. He passes two suspected and three secured tower points. This section, which runs through wooded and agriculturally used areas, continues to move on a plateau with only minor fluctuations in altitude up to Wp 10/46 (between 509 m above sea level for Wp 10/43 and 529 m above sea level for Wp 10 / 44). From Wp 10/46 (517 m above sea level) it then drops 75 meters to the Robern small fort.

ORL Name / place Description / condition
ORL 52 Fort Oberscheidental see above
Wp 10/43 "On the Neckarweg" Suspected, but not archaeologically proven, tower site.
Wp 10/44 "Hönen- or Heunenbuckel"
Wp 10/44
location
Wp 10/44
floor plan
In 1880 by Wilhelm Conrady and again in 1895 by Karl Schumacher , rubble mounds of a stone tower with sides of 8.10 m by 8.30 m were examined.

Around 15 meters north of the stone tower there is a nine-meter-wide, rounded elevation that suggests a wooden tower location, but which has not yet been proven.

Wp 10/45 "In the Weißmauerfeld" A stone tower that was broken out in the middle of the 19th century. Most recently, in 1970 Dietwulf Baatz was able to detect a flat hill and isolated Roman stone blocks.
Wp 10/46 "On the tricorn" A stone tower was recorded by Johann Philipp Dieffenbach (1786–1860), but it was already broken out in the 1850s. Location of a stone inscription referring to the Upper German Army. Measured in 1895 by the Reich Limes Commission .
Wp 10/47 "In the winning field" Suspected but not archaeologically investigated tower site based on finds of individual stones.
Wp 10/48 = KK Small fort Robern see main article small fort Robern

Monument protection

The Oberscheidental fort and the aforementioned ground monuments are protected as cultural monuments according to 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.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Kastell Oberscheidental  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The conventional starting date of the year 100 (± 5) is based on the results of the excavations that Dietwulf Baatz carried out in the Hesselbach fort between 1964 and 1966 . It is essentially based on the evaluation of the sigillates found (cf. the corresponding section in the Hesselbach article and Dietwulf Baatz: Fort Hesselbach and other research on the Odenwald Limes. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-7861-1059-X , ( Limesforschungen, Volume 12), pp. 85-96). In more recent literature, an initial dating of the Hesselbach fort and the entire Odenwald Limes to the period 107/110 is given preference. This dating approach is not based on new excavation findings, but on a statistical reassessment of the coin finds from all forts of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, which the archaeologist Klaus Kortüm presented for the first time in 1998 and on which some authors of the more recent literature now rely. (cf. Klaus Kortüm: On the dating of the Roman military installations in the Upper German-Raetian Limes area . In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 49, 1998. Zabern, Mainz 1998, pp. 5–65 and Egon Schallmayer : Der Limes. History of a border . Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-48018-7 , pp. 49–52 and pp. 54f.)
  2. ↑ ORL B 5, Fort No. 52, p. 2.
  3. ↑ Writings of the Altertumsverein zu Buchen, 1863, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Darmstädter Zeitung of July 3, 1880 and Karlsruher Zeitung of July 6, 1880.
  5. ↑ ORL B 5, Fort No. 52, p. 1f.
  6. ↑ ORL B 5, p. 6.
  7. ↑ Schallmayer, Odenwaldlimes, 2005, p. 122.
  8. ↑ Egon Schallmayer: The Odenwald Limes. Along the Roman border between the Main and Neckar. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2309-5 , p. 123.
  9. ^ A b Egon Schallmayer: The Odenwald Limes. Along the Roman border between the Main and Neckar. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2309-5 , p. 124.
  10. ↑ CIL 13, 06499 .
  11. ↑ Egon Schallmayer: The Odenwald Limes. Along the Roman border between the Main and Neckar. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2309-5 , pp. 124f.
  12. ↑ Egon Schallmayer: The Odenwald Limes. Along the Roman border between the Main and Neckar. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2309-5 , p. 125.

Remarks

  1. ^ Official website of the Mannheimer Altertumsverein .
  2. ↑ ORL = numbering of the Limes structures according to the publication of the Reich Limes Commission on the O bergermanisch- R ätischen- L imes
  3. ↑ ORL XY = consecutive numbering of the forts of the ORL
  4. ↑ Wp = W oh p east, watch tower. The number before the slash denotes the Limes section, the number after the slash denotes the respective watchtower.
  5. ↑ KK = unnumbered K linseed K astell