Oppidum Steinsburg
Steinsburg is popularly called the remains of a Celtic oppidum on the Kleiner Gleichberg in southern Thuringia in the Hildburghausen district near Waldhaus near Römhild .
History and description
The Kleine Gleichberg (641 m) forms a "geological twin pair" with the opposite Great Gleichberg (679 m). Both mountains are basalt cones of volcanic origin. The term Steinsburg (867: Steinberg) probably came about because of the large stone fields that surround the mountain plateau. Already Johann Wolfgang von Goethe recognized the volcanic origin of these stone fields, the basalt of the former volcanic chimney disintegrated through erosion into the block seas visible today, which are a typical characteristic of crumbling volcanic ruins . These basalt blocks were used in Celtic times to build dry stone walls to protect the oppidum. A total of three wall rings were built, which surrounded the mountain similar to city walls. The outermost wall is three kilometers long and encloses an area of 66 hectares. Only a few short pieces of these walls are partially preserved, but the collapsed parts still show the old structure.
When clearing large parts of the stone fields for road construction (from 1838), metal objects and other artefacts were accidentally found and their Celtic origin was later recognized. The increased basalt mining from 1858 onwards destroyed the easily accessible lower wall rings and brought to light a vast number of finds, of which mainly the metal finds in various collections have been preserved. At the instigation of Alfred Götze , the quarry operations were closed between 1902 and 1927. In 1929 the Steinsburg Museum was built on the saddle between Großes and Kleiner Gleichberg, where a large part of the finds are still on display today. Some scientists equate the Gleichberg mountains with the place Bikourgion mentioned in the geography of Klaudios Ptolemaios . The names Kleiner Gleichberg and Steinsburg are used side by side in scientific and local literature.
The widespread destruction has led to the salvage of an unusually high number, especially of metal finds. However, the context of the find was often not taken into account. In addition, the old finds contain few ceramic finds, since shards of vessels were often not preserved in the 19th century. Investigations of the circumstances of the find took place in 1874 by a Römhild doctor. In the early 20th century, planned excavations were carried out by the prehistorian Alfred Götze. In recent times, some of the remains of the fortifications that have been preserved have been preserved, but some of them have had to be dismantled and stacked again.
literature
- Reinhard Spehr : Archaeological topography of the stone castle near Römhild (= small writings of the state museum for prehistory . Issue 1). Dresden 1980, OCLC 9326280 .
- Werner Gall, Thomas Grasselt: Archaeological hiking trail in the Gleichberg area (= leaflet Thür. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology ). Gutenberg-Druck, Weimar (probably 1994).
- Karl Peschel: The prehistoric ceramics of the Gleichberge near Römhild in Thuringia (= publications of the prehistoric museum of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena . Volume 1 ). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1962, OCLC 174190080 .
Web links
- Steinsburg near Römhild . In: Oppida.org
Individual evidence
- ^ K. Peschel: Gleichberge. Pp. 14-17.
- ^ Sabine Rieckhoff , Jörg Biel : The Celts in Germany. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, p. 457.
Coordinates: 50 ° 24 ′ 43.5 " N , 10 ° 35 ′ 34.4" E