Roman Southwest Gate (Cologne)

Roman wall on Mauritiussteinweg

The southwest gate of the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was occasionally referred to in the sources as the "Eifel- or gate of Clemensstraße". It was one of probably nine gate structures (eight gates and a gate tower) of the fortified Roman city , three of which were on the western wall front . The history of this southwestern gate remained largely unknown, it was not mentioned in the post-Roman and early medieval times until the turn of the millennium .

history

location

Approximate location of the old "southwest gate"

The city ​​gate was located between the roundabout protecting the southwestern city at the later Greek gate and the central western gate , a forerunner of the later medieval Hahnentorburg , which was advanced far to the west . It stood at the level of Bobstrasse and Clemensstrasse at the confluence with one of the old stone paths in the city, today's Mauritiussteinweg.

City gate and Heerstrasse

The city gates were naturally the start and end point of streets, the importance of which and the volume of traffic determined the size of the passage. An east-west connection leading to the south-west exit of the city was formed from the south-east of the city at the gate of Königstrasse and led from there via Sternengasse and Agrippastrasse in the direction of the southwestern Steinweg. Field Windwärts the gate led the street directly, in the escape today, since the early Middle Ages occupied streets Huhnsgasse and Weyerstraße to later Zülpicher called road highway that until Prussian times its present name Luxemburger Straße received. There she passed one of the burial fields of the Romans laid out in front of the city walls on the military roads in the area close to the city and after this reached the open surrounding area. It then followed a straight line of the former Roman road Trier – Cologne through the Eifel , which led to Augusta Treverorum ( Trier ) and on to Lyon .

Remains of the former Roman gate on Clemensstrasse were found under the ancient building site of the road embankment at the beginning of Luxemburger Strasse, which was found in the glacis of the medieval Weyertore and was 1.00 m high and 5.30 m wide .

Gate findings

Elevation of the finds

The foundations of the south-west gate, which has not been mentioned for centuries, were discovered in Clemensstraße near Bobstraße and could clearly be assigned to the Roman period and to the material of the adjoining remains of the city wall, which was identical in its composition. There were two side walls running towards the city, 3.05 m and 3.00 m thick and an intermediate pillar 3.90 m in diameter, which formerly formed two gate openings, the southern one probably being a passage of 3.70 m and the northern one serving the pedestrians should have been about 2.60 m.

Rectangular foundation projections of 2.75 / 7.28 m were found between the city and side walls of the gate, which were interpreted as former substructures of staircases. A cuboid probably belonging to the initial step on the corner of the southern foundation was still in its original position. A probably shifted stone block lay on the foundation of the southern side wall. A clay pipe channel 0.265 m in diameter , embedded in a mass of chunks of tufa and mortar, led towards the field under the southern foundation of the stairs , the slope of which drained the sewage to the outside. A continuation of the canal was found 10 m in front of the city wall in Bobstrasse. It was found that the southern gate opening had been built with materials made of greywacke , trachyte , sandstone and bricks , and that it had lost its function as the gate of an important traffic artery in the city.

Roman milestone, found at Luxemburger Strasse

Milestone on the state road

The Leuga was an ancient Gallic measure of the route of about 2200 meters or 1 ½ Roman miles . On milestones it was used in Gaul and Germania instead of the Roman mile since the 3rd century.

In 1903, a milestone from Roman times made of red sandstone was found on Luxemburgerstrasse / Höhe Greinstrasse . The site of the stone was a little more than a leuga from the southwest gate of the colony (near St. Mauritius).

The milestone from the time AD 293-305 had an inscription dedicated to Augustus Maximianus and Caesar Constantius:

NOBILISSIMIs
CAESARIBVS
CO (n) STANTIO ET
MAXIMIAN (o)
INVICTIS

AC (olonia) A (grippinensium) L (euga) I

A denial to the noble rulers Constantius and Maximinianus, the invincible, of Cologne

Roman traces in the gate area

Head vessel of an Isis priest, Luxemburger Strasse

The Luxemburger Straße was not only the location of the milestone. Besides this, numerous graves were found there in graves of various sizes. South of the gate, in 1891, next to the roundabout (Kl. Greeksmarkt 81/85), the foundations of a Jupiter temple (approx. 10 × 10 m) with the image of Jupiter and two altars were found. In the immediate vicinity of the gate, at the corner of Clemensstrasse and Bobstrasse, the trunk of a colossal statue of Jupiter enthroned (Rhenish type) with the dimensions 1.35 m high, 0.64 m wide and 0.73 m deep was recovered.

Loss of its function as the main south-west gate

In the western suburbs, the Abbey of St. Pantaleon owned most of the land. To 1144 on which the masonry door system upstream terrain a stylus St. Pantaleon under standing Benedictine monastery built and now blocked the traditional way to the southwestern suburb, at the same time the beginning of "Via Agrippa", the Agrippa Street Cologne-Trier to Was southwest. As a replacement for the gate opposite the Mauritius Church, the Greek gate (porta Grecorum) was built on the corner of the street “Old Wall by the Bach” and “Little Greek Market”.

literature

• Johannes Krudewig (sources), in: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province. Volume VI, Section I. Sources, and Section II., Josef Klinkenberg, Das Römische Köln . In connection with Otto von Falke, Eduard Firmenich-Richartz, Joseph Klinkenberg , Johannes Krudewig, Hugo Rahtgens and Edmund Renard. Edited by Paul Clemen. Druck und Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1906. Reprint Pedagogical Verlag Schwann, 1980. ISBN 3-590-32108-3 .
• Hermann Keussen: Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , in 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. ISBN 978-3-7700-7560-7 and ISBN 978-3-7700-7561-4 .
• Adolph Thomas: History of the parish St. Mauritius in Cologne. With an illustration of the old Abbey of St. Pantaleon after Stengelius. 1st edition JP Bachem, Cologne 1878.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Keussen: Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , section "The Remains of the Roman Age ", p. 6
2. ↑ Paul Clemen “The Roman Cologne”, p. 249 f, with reference to “Bonner Jahrbücher”, LXXV, p. 3
3. ^ Paul Clemen "The Roman Cologne", drawing and excavation findings Tor Clemensstrasse, p. 193 f
4. ↑ According to information in the text accompanying the milestone of the Roman Germanic Museum Cologne
5. ↑ CIL 13.09154 ; M. Rathmann, Bonner Jahrb. 204, 2004, 40 f. No. 25; Paul Clemen “The Roman Cologne”, p. 250
6. ^ Paul Clemen "The Roman Cologne", pp. 220 and 247
7. ↑ ^{a b} Adolph Thomas, in: History of the parish of St. Mauritius in Cologne.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 0.5 ″  N , 6 ° 56 ′ 43.6 ″  E