Race Castle

The title of this article is ambiguous. Race castle is also an earlier name of the race mountain castle near Linz am Rhein in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Neuwied.

Race Castle
View from the northeast of the Schildwall, on the left is the entrance to the race castle
Creation time :	around 800 to 1000
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	Remnants of walls, walls, ditches
Construction:	Quarry stone
Place:	Winterscheid
Geographical location	50 ° 47 '52 "  N , 7 ° 20' 26"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 47 '52 "  N , 7 ° 20' 26"  E
Height:	153.1  m above sea level NHN

The Rennberg, flanked by the valleys of the Bröl (left) and Derenbach (right). View from the southwest. The flattened area of ​​the treetops marks the plateau on which the race castle is located.

The race castle is an early medieval ring wall in the district of Winterscheid in the municipality of Ruppichteroth in the Rhein-Sieg district in the south of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).

location

The facility is located on a steep mountain spur, a secondary summit of the 360 ​​m distant and 164.1  m high race mountain , above the confluence of the Derenbach in the Bröl . The former Spornburg is located at 153.1  m above sea level. NHN and thus a good 70 m above the valley floor, not far from the western end of the mountain range called Nutscheid .

history

The square was used at least since the late pre-Roman Iron Age (late Latène period ), when it was in the settlement area of ​​the Sugambres , until the Middle Ages, but with longer interruptions. Obvious is the use or purpose as a refuge , where the population sought refuge from threats in times of war. A first inventory by archaeologists from the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn in 1939 and its continuation in the form of systematic investigations in 1956, 1958 and 1959 were able to limit the period of construction of the facility (see below). However, the location was not so conclusive that a longer period of use or habitation can be considered secure. It is possible that the medieval building was erected as a precaution, but left before completion because the original danger was no longer considered to be given.

It is also conceivable that it was a system for protecting an iron melt. More recent excavations in the 1990s , however, did not provide any further information. Written certificates are not known.

investment

General plan of the race castle

The ring wall system in its current appearance is dated to the time of the 9th to 10th century due to similar structures. Most of the ceramic shards found here and an iron spur also date from this period . However, since the construction of such systems (double rows of tree trunks or beams, filled with earth and stones, if necessary wall core, supplemented with wooden structures, e.g. palisades or parapets ) remained similar for many centuries from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, there is none here final certainty.

Coming from the north-east, you first come across the remains of two section ramparts with ditches , which are in front of the actual, pear-shaped rampart system, at the narrowest and therefore easy-to-defend point of the mountain saddle . Here are traces of a wall core, which consists of a double quarry stone wall of 1 m or 0.80 m and was bonded with sand-lime mortar. In addition, (fire) remains of an earlier system were found, which is dated to the first century BC: Under the curtain wall , in a culture layer up to 0.30 m thick, post discoloration of a burnt earth / wooden wall was found. As a result, the medieval fortification that can be found today was built on a prehistoric site using or expanding the ruins of this predecessor building that were still in existence at the time, but which had fallen into disrepair.

The extension of the wall ring in north-south direction is around 120 m, the greatest width around 180 m. The ring is no longer completely closed today, its most powerful, about 3 to 4 m high part, the shield wall , turns towards the mountain saddle and can be seen in the photo at the top right. In front of it is a ditch up to 4 m deep, partly cut into the rock, and a good 6 m wide, as well as another, flatter earth wall. The actual ring wall is - apart from the section on the access side - relatively low, as the main protection was in the steep slopes of the race mountain. There are also indications of a watchtower or gate built in the access area. Next to the northern end of the shield wall are the hidden foundations of a stone building.

The area is a listed building.

References and comments

1. ↑ Werner Schönenbrücher and Dieter Otterbach, Much Tourist Office (ed.): Hiking in the footsteps of history - 16 circular hikes in the Bergisches Land between Agger and Sieg. 2006, p. 16 and 17th
2. ↑ for example the Aldeburg near Walberberg ( yearbook of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis 2007 , Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Der Landrat (ed.), Edition Blattwelt, Niederhofen 2006, ISBN 3-936256-24-1 , p. 128.)
3. ^ Entry on races mountain in the private database "Alle Burgen".
4. ↑ Other fortifications from the late Latène period in the vicinity are the ring wall Lüderich on the Lüderich , the Erdenburg near Moitzfeld , the ring wall Güldenberg in the Wahner Heide and the Petersberg in the Siebengebirge .
5. ^ Stefan Grathoff: Burgwall. (No longer available online.) In: regionalgeschichte.net. Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz e. V., archived from the original on July 14, 2015 ; Retrieved July 14, 2015 (Glossary). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

literature

• Richard Jilka: Rennenburg and Nutscheidstrasse . In: Heimat- & Geschichtsverein Neunkirchen-Seelscheid e. V. (Ed.): Heimatblätter . No. 19 , 2004, pp. 21-37 .
• Karl Künster: Man in the landscape of Winterscheider . In: Hubert Janzen (Ed.): Winterscheid - a home book . Heimatverein Winterscheid e. V., Winterscheid 1982, pp. 21-24.

Web links

• Entry on Rennenburg in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute