Roman settlement on the Frankfurt Cathedral Hill

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The Roman settlement on the Frankfurt Cathedral Hill was a Roman settlement of unknown or changing function on the Cathedral Hill of the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in the old town of Frankfurt am Main . The building remains, which are now preserved in the exhibition Kaiserpfalz Franconofurd together with the remains of the Königspfalz Frankfurt , were initially considered to be military due to the early time and topography, although no fortifications or clearly recognizable Roman military camp buildings were discovered. In more recent archaeological research, the allocation is usually left open because the area was later heavily built over and important parts of the complex were later destroyed. Some of the recognizable Roman buildings could also have belonged to a civil settlement, a street station, a praetorium or a villa rustica .

View of the former archaeological garden from the west, in the foreground the hypocausted rotunda from the first construction phase
View from the cathedral tower into the archaeological garden, September 2011
Bronze model with the foundations of Roman buildings and the Carolingian Palatinate

topography

Large parts of Frankfurt's old town with the cathedral are located on a clearly recognizable elevation that slopes down towards the Main , which flows south to the south . The Römerberg adjoins it to the west , while to the east of the cathedral and Fahrgasse was the marshy fishing field , which for this reason remained undeveloped for a long time in the Middle Ages . To the north of the elevations, the Braubach ("Bruchbach"), an oxbow river of the Main , ran almost parallel to the bank of the Main and formed a natural obstacle to the approach that was later used by the first Frankfurt city wall . Today's Braubachstrasse roughly corresponds to its course.

Limestone rocks in the Main south of the flat hills, often referred to as Cathedral Island , formed a ford . In Roman times, several Roman roads converged here, which used the opportunity to cross the river. Remains of wooden bridge piles, which have long been taken as evidence of a Roman bridge, have been proven to be medieval (1450) through dendrochronological studies. It remains questionable whether the Romans only used this important river crossing, which later gave Frankfurt its name, despite their technical skills. Secured Roman Main bridges existed at the forts Großkrotzenburg and Hanau-Salisberg . The shortest connection between the Civitas capitals Nida-Heddernheim ( Civitas Taunensium ) and Dieburg ( Civitas Auderiensium ) ran across the river crossing .

history

The favorable topographical location meant that the settlement site had been visited several times at least since the early imperial era . There are several Germanic individual finds from pre-Flavian times , which spread over the entire settlement area. Individual ceramic shards from the Augustan period may also suggest an occupation of the cathedral hill during the Germanic campaigns.

During the reign of Emperor Vespasian , the Lower Maine area was reoccupied by Roman troops in the 1970s. From this time, however, only a round thermal bath building and an associated sewer are proven. The bottom of the canal was made of bricks with the stamps of Legio XIIII Gemina . The foundations of the rotunda are preserved in the archaeological garden. No other buildings are known. The complex was probably destroyed in the Saturnine Uprising in 88/89 AD.

Then another bathing building was built, which of all the buildings could be excavated the furthest. Brick stamps from various troops prove that it was a military building. It is located in parts in the east of the Archaeological Garden and is very similar in size and construction to the bathing buildings of the castles of the Odenwald Limes , which is why a corresponding numerus fort was assumed. An associated fort would have the size of about 0.6 hectares with a crew of 150 men. It was suspected to be east of the bath under the cathedral, but no remains of it were found. Another, incompletely preserved building at the western end of the archaeological garden (formerly found in Tuchgaden / today's Schirn Kunsthalle ) also belongs to this construction phase, as well as the remains of a water basin near the escalator to the Dom / Römer underground station (not reconstructed, partly also addressed as nymphaeum ).

During the reign of Emperor Trajan , the area came under the civil administration of the Civitas Taunensium with the main town of Nida in nearby Frankfurt-Heddernheim . The military use of the square was given up, while the settlement focus in Roman times was in the northwestern part of today's Frankfurt. Civilian use followed on the cathedral hill, which included several, partially hypocausted residential buildings north of the archaeological garden (at the former chicken market / later technical town hall , not visible) and a courtyard wall. To erect the buildings, some rubble from the previous military structures was used. The right-angled walling of the outer boundary is strongly reminiscent of the usual rural settlement form of the villa rustica . The system may have had a special function as a street station or a storage area for goods. The remains of buildings excavated in the vicinity of proven public buildings have led to the assumption of a praetorium , whereby the similarity of the building in Tuchgaden to a building in Oedenburg-Westergass (Haut-Rhin) was cited.

The end of Roman settlement came with the fall of the Limes around 260 AD. A few decades after the Romans withdrew, the Alamanni settled in the ruins. In addition to the hand-turned Germanic pottery, finds from imported Roman goods such as terra sigillata and glass vessels are evidence of this . The latest coin dates from the reign of Emperor Constantius II. This settlement probably existed beyond the time of the Frankish conquest. Parts of the Roman buildings were included in the Merovingian royal court, which preceded the later royal palace .

Research history

The then controversial Roman origin of Frankfurt was first documented in November 1889 when Roman rubble and the aforementioned Roman canal were discovered during canal works west of the cathedral. Because of the finds of military bricks, Adam Hammeran was immediately certain that he had come across a Roman fort at the intersection of Mainuferstraße with a natural ford. After further excavations at the chicken market from 1895–1897, there were already finds of 17 military bricks. This prompted Georg Wolff to accept a fort on the cathedral hill. The fort in Frankfurt was subsequently included in the Limeswerk under number 27a .

The air raid on March 22, 1944, with the complete destruction of the old town, offered the possibility of further investigations in the post-war period. These were carried out with interruptions between 1953 and 1973 by the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (today the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt ) under Hans Jürgen Hundt and Ulrich Fischer . The Roman findings, which were heavily destroyed by later settlement, could only be supplemented to a small extent. The discovery of the Carolingian Palatinate was more important for this excavation period . The Roman excavation findings were published in 1982 by Jürgen Wahl as part of his dissertation.

Exhibition Kaiserpfalz Franconofurd

Townhouse 2016

The foundations of the Roman buildings are presented together with the foundations of the Merovingian and Carolingian Palatinate in the exhibition Kaiserpfalz Franconofurd , which replaces the former archaeological garden. The garden was created between 1972 and 1974 when the “Dom / Römer” subway station was built. Two bronze models illustrate the various buildings from Roman times and the Middle Ages. As part of the realization of the Dom-Römer project , the archaeological garden was built over with the so-called town house from 2012 to 2016. The remains of the wall remain accessible to the public through the branch of the Archaeological Museum, but are now protected from the weather and have been prepared as a museum.

literature

  • Dietwulf Baatz : Frankfurt am Main. Cathedral hill with historical garden. Rom. Construction remains. In: D. Baatz, Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (ed.): The Romans in Hessen. Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , pp. 293-296. (Licensed edition of the 1989 edition)
  • Ingeborg Huld-Zetsche : The Roman Age. In: Frankfurt am Main and the surrounding area . Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0585-X , pp. 83-95 ( Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Germany , Volume 19).
  • Hans Ulrich Nuber , Gabriele Seitz : Frankfurt's Roman Origin - Fort or Praetorium? In: Svend Hansen , Volker Pingel (Hrsg.): Archeology in Hessen: New finds and findings. Festschrift for Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann on his 65th birthday. Rahden / Westf. 2001, pp. 187–196 ( International Archeology, Studia honoraria 13).
  • Jürgen Wahl : The Roman military base on Frankfurt Cathedral Hill. With an investigation into the Germanic settlement of the Frankfurt urban area in pre-Flavian times. Habelt, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-7749-1960-7 ( writings of the Frankfurt Museum for Pre- and Early History 6).
  • Egon Wamers : On the archeology of Frankfurt's old town - the archaeological garden. In: Frankfurt am Main and the surrounding area . Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0585-X , pp. 154–159 ( Guide to Archaeological Monuments in Germany , Volume 19).

Excavation report of the Reich Limes Commission :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ I. Huld-Zetsche: The Roman times. In: Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany 19 Stuttgart, 1989 p. 89.
  2. ^ J. Wahl: The Roman military base on the Frankfurt Cathedral Hill. Habelt, Bonn 1982, p. 26f.
  3. ↑ Dietwulf Baatz in: The Romans in Hesse. Nikol, Hamburg 2002, p. 293f.
  4. ↑ Dietwulf Baatz in: The Romans in Hesse. Nikol, Hamburg 2002, p. 295f.
  5. ↑ Hans Ulrich Nuber, Gabriele Seitz: Frankfurt's Roman Origin - Fort or Praetorium? In: Festschrift for Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann. Rahden / Westf. 2001, pp. 187-196.
  6. ^ Helmut Schubert: The coins found in the Roman period in Germany (FMRD) . Department V: Hessen . Volume 2.2: Darmstadt; Frankfurt am Main. Mainz 1989, ISBN 3-7861-1552-4 , p. 326.
  7. ^ Adam Hammeran: The Roman fort in Frankfurt. Arch. Frankfurter Gesch. u. Art 3, Volume 3, 1891, pp. 301–311.
  8. ^ J. Wahl: The Roman military base on the Frankfurt Cathedral Hill. Habelt, Bonn 1982.

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 38.1 ″  N , 8 ° 41 ′ 4.2 ″  E