Roman grave Cologne-Weiden
The Roman grave in Cologne-Weiden , Aachener Straße 1328 , is an underground burial chamber ( hypogaeum ) from the 2nd century.
Roman graves were usually on the arteries of a place. In this way, travelers could remember the dead who thus kept the memory. A particularly elaborate grave was on the Via Belgica highway from Tongeren to Cologne , about nine kilometers from the west gate of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in what is now the Weiden district . Several generations of a wealthy Roman family were buried in the richly furnished burial chamber of a nearby villa rustica . A simpler counterpart on Agrippa-Straße Cologne – Trier is the Roman grave in Efferen .
Find history
The burial chamber was discovered in April 1843 when the carter Ferdinand Sieger wanted to add a new farm building for his business. During the excavation work, he came across rubble that he wanted to use for his extension. While clearing the rubble, he discovered a staircase that ran more than five meters down to a stone closure plate. Sieger thought there was a hidden treasure behind the plate and smashed it. But when he found more rubble behind it, he wanted to backfill the pit. The then mayor of Üsdorf, Weygold, and a landowner from Lövenich named Dapper, however, financed a further excavation under the supervision of a miner in exchange for an agreed finding.
In 1844, the Cologne cathedral master builder at the time, senior building officer Ernst Friedrich Zwirner , succeeded in acquiring the property and the burial chamber for the sum of 2,300 thalers for the Kingdom of Prussia . Zwirner had the grave building rebuilt. As is customary today, he used other materials than the original tufa stones from the Brohl valley for supplemented building structures, so that the reconstructed parts can be clearly distinguished. At the same time a protective structure and a keeper's house were built. Zwirner created a new entrance for visitors and opened the tomb to the public in 1848. The caretaker's house on Aachener Strasse is now number 1328.
Immediately after the first excavation, the excavation report by SR Schneider was published, followed by a report in the 1843 Bonn yearbooks by L. Ulrichs. However, a comprehensive submission was only made in 1957 by Fritz Fremersdorf .
With the assumption of responsibility by the Roman-Germanic Museum , due to the incorporation of Weiden into Cologne in 1975, extensive conservation and restoration measures were undertaken.
Building description
Originally, a staircase made of Brohltaltuff led to the entrance to the underground burial chamber, which was about six meters below the surface of the earth. The stairs and the closing plate are no longer preserved today. The walls of the hypogeum are made up of 2.50 × 0.73 × 0.57 meter blocks, which are bricked up in four layers above a base zone without mortar and which are also made of Brohltaltuff. A barrel ceiling made of smaller, mortared tuff blocks rests on the side walls . The floor is also made of tuff slabs. Only the door frame is made of red sandstone, which sets the entrance compositionally. The burial chamber was closed with a stone slab on which a heavy bronze ring was mounted. This locking plate was destroyed by the finder.
The hypogaeum itself measures 3.60 × 4.40 meters and has a height of 4.06 meters under the vertex of the barrel ceiling . In the middle of the two side walls and the wall opposite the entrance are 0.79 meters deep, conical niches with a rectangular floor plan, 1.79 meters wide and 1.54 meters high. In these main niches, clinics set off with marble are carved out. Underneath each kline there is an arkosol -like chamber, which was usually intended to hold corpses in body burials. However, the Weidener chambers are too small for this, so that these pseudo-arcosolies can only have a symbolic or decorative purpose.
A total of 29 smaller niches have been worked out in the side walls. The only exception is the smooth wall with the entrance. The niches were used to hold ash urns and offerings. This finding illustrates the use of the hypogaeum as a columbarium .
Only fragmentarily preserved fragments of columns of the Tuscan order were found of the postulated above-ground grave building, which makes a reconstruction of the above- ground structure difficult.
inventory
Due to its furnishings, the Roman grave in Weiden is one of the most important grave structures of Roman times north of the Alps. These are comparable in design and decor to burial chambers from the Mediterranean area, but also show local peculiarities.
Furniture
In front of the niches in the side walls there was a wicker chair (cathedra) modeled from limestone . In interaction with the clinics in the main niches, this creates the impression of a triclinium , a dining room that is arranged according to Roman table custom. The noble Roman man sat on a kline while eating, while his wife ate her meal sitting at the foot of the man. Stone furniture of this type is unique for the northern provinces.
sarcophagus
The most prominent exhibit in the burial chamber is a tub sarcophagus made of Carrara marble , which is decorated with figurative reliefs of possibly seasonal motifs.
The lid, also made of marble, was originally intended for a larger sarcophagus. For the Weiden sarcophagus, the piece was made smaller by removing the sides. The lid also shows figurative representations of high quality. The relief images include a tabula, in which, however, no inscription has been engraved.
The decor and quality of both the sarcophagus and the lid suggest that they are imports from Rome. Due to art historical comparisons, it is dated to the end of the 3rd century.
Since the sarcophagus could not have entered the hypogaeum through the access due to its size , it is assumed that the original installation site was in the above-ground grave structure and that it fell into the underground chamber when the vault collapsed.
Portrait busts
Three portrait busts from the late 2nd century were found in the burial chamber . The persons depicted, a man, a woman and a young girl, may be the deceased members of the landowning family who were buried in the hypogaeum . No inscriptions have survived, so their names have not been passed down.
Small finds
The small finds discovered when the burial chamber was uncovered were described by Schneider in 1843. Almost all of them were brought to Berlin soon after they were taken over by the Kingdom of Prussia , and most of them were lost in World War II.
According to Schneider's report, there were “ash jugs” in the chamber, which may have served as urns . Other finds come into question as grave goods , but cannot be assigned to any specific burial. These include glass drinking vessels, a square bottle with preserved saline residue , amber pearls and a silver bowl.
The most precious jewel was a 10.2 cm high figure made of chalcedony . A young woman is shown wearing a chiton and coat.
Dating
The earliest dated find from the area of the burial chamber is a central Gaulish terra sigillata bowl from the 1st half of the 2nd century. Two of the portrait busts found date, for reasons of art history, to the last decade of the 2nd century. From this, a construction and occupancy time for the underground hypogaeum can be assumed in the 2nd century. The sarcophagus from the above-ground grave building dates from the late 3rd century. The series of coins with a final coin of Constantius II shows that the tomb was frequented until the 4th century.
Friends of the Roman grave Weiden
In order to turn the important ground monument into a place of learning and experience , the Förderverein Römergrab Weiden e.V. was founded on March 2, 2017 on the initiative of the ground monument curator and provincial Roman archaeologist Heinz Günter Horn . V. , which works together with the Romano-Germanic Museum of the City of Cologne and also provides the office. The association is also supported by the Archaeological Society of Cologne and the University of Cologne with the chair for the history of the Roman provinces.
The important architectural and ground monument was made accessible to the general public in July 2019 through the introduction of regular opening times.
In order to revive the forgotten gem on Aachener Straße into a cultural site, the sponsoring association took a variety of measures. First of all, the ancient tomb was equipped with modern information facilities on the ground floor and a training concept was developed. The inconspicuous inscription "Roemergrab" from 1848 in the arch stones of the entrance to the protective structure was supplemented on June 10, 2019 by a banner "Römergrab Weiden" on the guard house. On December 14, 2019, the KVB stop “Weiden Schulstraße” was ceremoniously renamed “Weiden Römergrab”. In June 2020, the district council decided to put up signs for pedestrians and drivers to the Roman grave.
literature
- Johannes Deckers , Peter Noelke : The Roman burial chamber in Cologne-Weiden (= Rheinische Kunststätten. Issue 238). 2nd, revised edition. Neusser Druckerei und Verlag, Neuss 1985, ISBN 3-88094-495-4 .
- Fritz Fremersdorf : The Roman grave in Weiden near Cologne (= art monuments of the Cologne district in individual representations. 1, ZDB -ID 2253596-2 ). Der Löwe publishing house, Cologne 1957.
- Paul Clemen : Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Der Landkreis Köln, page 188-192, Düsseldorf 1897, reprint Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-590-32118-0 , pp. 188-192.
Web links
- Roman grave Weiden Förderverein e. V.
- Weidener burial chamber, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in the Arachne archaeological database
- Video of the Roman tomb
Individual evidence
- ↑ L. Ulrichs: The Roman tomb in Weyden near Cöln. In: Yearbooks of the Society of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland. Year 1843, Volume 3, ZDB -ID 218002-9 , pp. 134–148.
- ↑ Martin Oehlen: Roman grave in Cologne-Weiden: Förderverein criticizes the city - permanent opening now possible. In: ksta.de. March 14, 2019, accessed July 8, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Sven Hansen: More signs to the Roman grave Signs for passers-by and motorists. In: rheinische-verbindungenblaetter.de. June 4, 2020, accessed June 28, 2020 .
- ↑ No longer to be overlooked: Roman grave Weiden. In: roemergrab.de. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
- ↑ From now on: Next stop “Weiden Römergrab”. In: roemergrab.de. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 18.9 ″ N , 6 ° 49 ′ 28.1 ″ E