Römerbad (Weinsberg)

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The Roman bath from the north

As a Roman bath is called the remains of a Roman bath house in the town of Vineyard ( district Heilbronn , northern Baden-Wuerttemberg ), were discovered in 1906 and subsequently excavated and preserved. In 1977 parts of the remains of the Villa rustica , i.e. the Roman estate to which the bathing building belonged, were excavated and preserved. The facility is freely accessible.

history

With the border shift from the Neckar Limes by around 30 km to the East to the Upper German Limes , around 159 AD, today's area of ​​the city of Weinsberg became part of the Roman Empire . Probably very soon afterwards, the Roman estate was built on the Römerstrasse from the Böckingen fort to the forts in Öhringen . The bricks for its construction came, as the discovery of a brick stamp GLSP reveals, at least partially from the private brickwork of Gaius Longinius Speratus in today's Großbottwar . The manor presumably only existed for a few decades and was given up again at the latest when the Alamanni invaded in 259/260 AD. In the short time of its existence, the estate experienced four construction phases.

Findings during the excavation by A. Schliz (1906)
A: Frigidarium / Apodyterium
B: Cold water basin
C: Tepidarium
D: Caldarium
E: Caldarium
F: Warm water basin
G: Sudatorium
H: Praefurnium
J: Latrine

The bathhouse belonging to the estate was rediscovered in 1906. Since 1880, remnants of walls and bricks had repeatedly been observed in the gardens of the Leibling corridor in the western urban area of ​​Weinsberg. When walls and bricks were found again in October 1906 while digging a tree hole at a depth of 0.5 m, the Heilbronn doctor and archaeologist Alfred Schliz carried out a re-excavation that same month . When it became clear that Roman remains had been found, Schliz dug up the entire bathing building together with Peter Goessler in November 1906 and arranged for it to be preserved. Schliz's report on the excavation appeared in 1907 in the Find reports from Swabia. If Schliz had assumed that the thermal baths must have been a separate facility that he postulated as a "public bath", Oscar Paret expressed the presumption that it was confirmed by 1932, based on further building findings discovered in 1928 at the latest a villa bathroom would act.

In the course of time, damage occurred to the exposed, now so-called Römerbad , which was repaired in 1976. In the process, two previously unknown walls were found that led from the bathhouse to the southeast, the remains of a 13 m long colonnade that connected the bathhouse with the main building of the estate. In 1977, the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office , under the direction of Jörg Biel, exposed the corridor as well as the part of the main building that did not extend to neighboring properties. The western part of the main building, including a room with hypocaust (underfloor heating), was preserved, the course of other walls marked with stone slabs.

investment

The remains of the bathing building from the southeast (with a protective roof from the 20th century)

The main building, as far as it could be exposed, had four different construction phases. From the second construction phase, it showed the typical features of a villa rustica with a rectangular floor plan, inner courtyard and corner risalits . The bathing building was also built in the third phase of an expansion.

This 14 × 15 m bath building was located northwest of the main building and was connected to it by a 13 m long colonnade. It belonged to the compact block type , in which, in contrast to the row type, all bathrooms were compactly next to each other. One entered the bathroom through a door in the southeast, which led into a rectangular room, which probably served both as a dressing room ( apodyterium ) and as a cooling room ( frigidarium ) . A semicircular cold water basin was in front of it in the southwest. During the excavations in 1906, a 63 cm high, headless statue of a bathing goddess of luck ( Fortuna balnearis) was found here , which was probably placed in a niche above the bench. Doors led from here to the warm air room ( tepidarium ) to the north and the hot bath room ( caldarium ) to the west . In the north-west there is another caldarium with a flat basin attached to the west, and to the north of this second caldarium there is another room, perhaps a sweat bath ( sudatorium ) . Except for the entrance room with a cold water basin, all of these rooms were heated, either with underfloor or wall heating or even with both. The heat from the heaters came via a heating duct from a furnace ( praefurnium ) attached to the bath complex in the northwest . Another rectangular room attached to the east of the bath complex and accessible from the outside is interpreted as a latrine .

literature

  • Jörg Biel: Investigation of a Roman building in Weinsberg, Heilbronn district . In: Archaeological excavations 1977. Ground monument maintenance in the Reg.-Bez. Stuttgart and Tübingen . Society for Prehistory and Early History in Württemberg and Hohenzollern, Stuttgart 1978, p. 49-50 .
  • Simon M. Haag: Romans - Salier - Staufer - Weinsberger. A brief history of the castle and town of Weinsberg . Edited by the Weinsberg City Archives. Verlag Nachrichtenblatt der Stadt Weinsberg, Weinsberg 1996, ISBN 3-9802689-9-3 , p. 5-6 .
  • Werner Helmut Heinz: Roman baths in Baden-Württemberg. Typological research . Dissertation at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. Vogler, Tübingen 1979, pp. 119f.
  • Claus-Michael Hüssen : Warmth and Light. The Roman bath in Weinsberg and a cemetery with cremation graves in Offenau . In: Schliz - A Schliemann in the Unterland? 100 years of archeology in the Heilbronn area . City Museums Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1999, ISBN 3-930811-81-2 , p. 192-199 ( Museo . 14).
  • Claus-Michael Hüssen: The Roman settlement in the area around Heilbronn. Theiss, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8062-1493-X , (= research and reports on prehistory and early history in Baden-Württemberg, 78), p. 300
  • Oscar Paret : Weinsberg. In Ders .: The settlements of Roman Württemberg . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1932, (= Friedrich Hertlein , Oscar Paret, Peter Goessler : Die Römer in Württemberg, Part 3 ), pp. 79–80, figs. 39 and 42 and p. 393
  • Dieter Planck : Weinsberg (HN). Bath and main building of a Roman manor . In: Dieter Planck (Ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg. Roman sites and museums from Aalen to Zwiefalten . Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1555-3 , p. 362-364 .
  • Dieter Planck: Weinsberg. Manor with bath house . In: Sölter (Hrsg.): The Roman Germania from the air. 2nd Edition. Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1983. ISBN 3-7857-0298-1 . P. 123 ff.

Web links

Commons : Römerbad Weinsberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Schliz: The Roman public bathing building near Weinsberg. Find reports from Swabia, 14th year 1906. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1907, p. 47ff.
  2. ^ Find reports from Swabia . New series IV, 1926–1928. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1928, p. 76.
  3. ↑ Oscar Paret: Weinberg. In Ders .: The settlements of Roman Württemberg . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1932, (= Friedrich Hertlein , Oscar Paret, Peter Goessler : The Romans in Württemberg, Part 3 ), p. 79f. and p. 393.

Coordinates: 49 ° 9 ′ 9 ″  N , 9 ° 16 ′ 46 ″  E