Kneblinghausen Roman Camp

The Kneblinghausen Roman camp is a fortification around one kilometer south of the Kneblinghausen district of the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Rüthen ( Soest district ).

In 1901 the fortification was discovered by the senior teacher A. Hartmann from Rüthen. The first excavation took place under his direction from 1901 to 1907. In 1926 August Stieren resumed the investigation. He had an excavation carried out in 1934. Initiated by Spethmann from Essen, further excavations took place on the ramparts and in the interior from 1937 to 1939.

The excavations brought certainty about the extent of the complex. It also became clear that there must have been two construction phases. The first building was about 450 × 245 m, the second phase shortened the building in the east by about 130 meters. The buried gates were so-called clavicle gates , which led, among other things, to the assumption that the rampart could be a Roman fortification.

However, the excavations in the interior did not produce any reliable Roman finds. Instead, finds and findings emerged that made a Germanic settlement around the birth of Christ likely. It was believed that a Germanic settlement was destroyed by the construction of the Roman camp.

For a long time, clavicle gates were considered typical of the late first century AD. Therefore, Kneblinghausen could not be included in the well-known series of Augustan Roman camps on the Lippe ( Lippia ) ( Holsterhausen , Haltern , Olfen , Oberaden , Anreppen ). Instead, the facility was linked to the Chat campaigns under Emperor Domitian (in the 80s of the 1st century AD).

In the east camp of Haltern, a clavicle gate was unearthed during excavations in 2000. For this reason, an interpretation by Kneblinghausen in connection with the Roman-Germanic disputes over the birth of Christ (for example the Varus Battle ) appears to be entirely justifiable.

G. Mildenberger interpreted - as there was little clear evidence of Roman origins - the complex as a Germanic fortification. The builders used the Roman fortification technique to fortify a previously unsecured settlement area. This view could not prevail.

The hypothesis of the imperial mining of lead ore in the northern Sauerland by Roman mine operators uses a completely new approach . Based on epigraphic findings it is assumed, among other things, that there was such a Roman mining in the Brilon area . Peter Rothenhöfer assumes that "the soldiers stationed in the Kneblinghausen camp may have been assigned tasks in the area of ​​security and surveillance for this mining district" . However, based on the current state of mining archaeological knowledge, this does not seem likely.

According to the current state of research, Kneblinghausen is a Roman camp, possibly from the period of the Roman-Germanic conflict around the turn of the times, possibly also in the course of economic activities in the run-up to "provincialization efforts". A precise interpretation within the framework of the written sources on Roman-Germanic history is currently not possible.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See the site of the Archäologische Freundeskreis OWL ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 523 kB). 
2. ↑ Peter Rothenhöfer: metalla pretium victoriae - New findings on Roman mining in Germania during the Augustan occupation period. In: Mining in the Sauerland. Westphalian mining in Roman times and in the early Middle Ages. Verlag des Westfälischen Heimatbundes, Münster, 2006, pp. 5–20.
3. ↑ Martin Straßburger: Plumbi nigri origo duplex est - lead mining of the Roman Empire in the northeastern Sauerland. In: W. Melzer, T. Capelle (ed.): Lead mining and lead processing during the Roman Empire in Barbaricum on the right bank of the Rhine. (= Soest contributions to archeology. Volume 8). Soest 2007, pp. 57-70.

literature

• The Soest district. Theiss-Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1516-2 .
• Georg Eggenstein: The settlement system of the younger pre-Roman Iron Age and the early Roman Imperial Era in the Lippe area. (= Soil antiquities of Westphalia. 40). Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-8053-3101-0 .
• Johann-Sebastian Kühlborn: The Roman camp at Anreppen. In: Germaniam pacavi - I pacified Germania. Münster 1995, pp. 130–144, supplement 3.
• Bernhard Rudnick: The Roman camp Kneblinghausen, city of Rüthen, district of Soest. (= Roman camp in Westphalia. 1). Münster 2008.

Web links

• Jona Lendering: Kneblinghausen . In: Livius.org (English)

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 27.2 "  N , 8 ° 30 ′ 22.4"  E