Roman Bridge (Trier)

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The Roman Bridge from the south
Roman bridge at night
Roman bridge, view from the Marian column
Cross and statue on the middle of the bridge

The Römerbrücke (also known as the Old Moselle Bridge ), which crosses the Moselle in Trier ( Augusta Treverorum ), is the oldest bridge in Germany.

The Roman Bridge has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Roman Monuments, Cathedral and Church of Our Lady in Trier since 1986 .

history

A first Roman Moselle bridge made of wood existed from 18 BC. BC / 17 BC BC It was a pile yoke bridge ; the piles could be dated 1963 with the help of dendrochronological studies.

The first stone bridge was built in 45 AD a little bit downstream from the current location of the Roman Bridge, as dendrochronological studies have shown. It is said that parts of the pillars can still be seen today at low tide.

The pillars of today's stone bridge were built between 142 and 150 AD. The new Römerbrücke is the third bridge at this point since the city was founded. With the help of watertight sheet pile walls, the pillars with basalt and bluestone blocks were built on the river bed . The building material came from a. from the mining area around the former Hohe Buche volcano . The bridge has pointed pillars upstream in order to be able to withstand floods and ice better. In Roman times, a wooden bridge structure, a so-called truss structure , was built on the massive pillars . This was able to withstand traffic well thanks to a ten meter wide lane. Since the lane was approx. 14 m above the Moselle at normal level, the masts of the ships no longer had to be folded down when they sailed downstream. Upstream, they had to because of the strong current towed are.

The bridge gate, the Porta Inclyta (Famous Gate) , which was demolished in the Middle Ages , is still a mystery today. Scientists are currently arguing whether the gate, similar to Porta Nigra, was on the left or right side of the Moselle.

The stone vault was only created in the Middle Ages between 1190 and 1490, possibly under Elector Baldwin (1307-1354). All nine bridge piers have been preserved to this day; the older assumption that two of these nine were renewed in 1717/18 is not correct. The first two on the city side have been hidden in the embankment since a renovation in Roman times.

In 1689 the bridge was blown up by French troops, 1716–1718 the electoral Trier court carpenter Johann Georg Judas renewed the arch. On this occasion, a crucifix and a statue of St. Nicholas were erected on the fifth pillar from the west . In 1806 the western bridge gate was demolished, and the eastern one followed in 1869. In 1931 the bridge was widened and received today's cantilevered pedestrian walkways.

On the morning of March 2, 1945, the Americans were able to cross the undestroyed Roman bridge in the direction of Trier-West. For unexplained reasons, the bridge was not blown up by the German troops. According to an eyewitness, there was already so much debris on the bridge that the cables used to detonate the charges were probably damaged.

After the Second World War, extensive archaeological investigations were carried out in the course of the Moselle canalization . In 2012, the city of Trier announced an architectural competition to redesign the area around the bridge and the bridge itself, with the aim of bringing the monument to its best advantage. For financial reasons, however, it is currently hardly possible to implement the proposals.

Historical views

literature

  • Dehio : Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland , 2nd edition, Munich 1984, p. 1052.
  • Heinz Cüppers : The Trier Roman bridges , von Zabern, Mainz 1969, ISBN 3-923319-91-6 ( Trier excavations and research 5 ).
  • Heinz Cüppers: Trier - the Roman bridge. in: H. Cüppers (Ed.): The Romans in Rhineland-Palatinate. Licensed edition, Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-60-0 , pp. 608–614.
  • Heinz Cüppers: The Roman Bridges. In: Hans-Peter Kuhnen (Ed.): The Roman Trier. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1517-0 , pp. 158–165 ( Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany 40 ).
  • Jens Fachbach: On the building history of the Trier Roman Bridge after 1718 , in: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch 47, 2007, pp. 383-416.
  • Sabine Faust: Roman Bridge. In: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier (ed.): Guide to archaeological monuments of the Trier region. Trier 2008, ISBN 978-3-923319-73-2 ( series of publications by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier 35 ) p. 60f.
  • Karl-Josef Gilles: "Time in the Stream" - Roman and post-Roman finds from the Roman bridge in Trier. In: H.-P. Kuhnen (Ed.): Submerged, surfaced. River finds. From history. With their story. Trier 2001, ISBN 3-923319-48-7 , pp. 87-92 ( series of publications of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier 21 ).
  • Klaus Grewe : The Moselle bridges from Trier. In: The same: Masterpieces of ancient technology. Von Zabern, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-8053-4239-1 , pp. 120-122.
  • Mechthild Neyses, Ernst Hollstein in: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier (Hrsg.): Trier - Augustus city of the Treveri. 2nd edition, Mainz 1984, pp. 180-182.

See also

Web links

Commons : Römerbrücke (Trier)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Holger Dietrich: Roman Emperors in Germany. The archaeological guide , Holger Sonnabend and Christian Winkel, Darmstadt / Mainz 2013, p. 75 para. 2
  2. ↑ Petzholdt Hans: 2000 years of urban development Trier: catalog for the exhibition , self-published by the building department of the city of Trier, Trier 1984, p. 24 para. 2
  3. ^ Holger Dietrich: Roman Emperors in Germany. The archaeological guide , Holger Sonnabend and Christian Winkel, Darmstadt / Mainz 2013, p. 95 para. 2

Coordinates: 49 ° 45 ′ 7 ″  N , 6 ° 37 ′ 36 ″  E