Heunstein ring wall castle

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Heunstein ring wall castle
Creation time : Late Latency
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Wall and moat remains
Place: Dillenburg - Nanzenbach
Geographical location 50 ° 45 '47.6 "  N , 8 ° 18' 0.7"  O Coordinates: 50 ° 45 '47.6 "  N , 8 ° 18' 0.7"  E
Height: 471.1  m above sea level NHN
Ringwallburg Heunstein (Hesse)
Heunstein ring wall castle

The Ringwallburg Heunstein are the remains of a Celtic hill fort ( Ringwallburg ) at 471.1  m above sea level. NN high "Heunstein" near the Nanzenbach district of the city of Dillenburg in the Lahn-Dill district in Hesse .

Only remnants of the ring wall and the moat are left of the former castle from the late Latene period .

location

The remains of the ramparts lie in the forest area north of Dillenburg, southeast of Manderbach, south of Frohnhausen and southwest of Nanzenbach. The ridge on which the rampart is located is surrounded to the west by the Dietzhölze and from east to south by the Nanzenbach . The Heunstein is located about ten kilometers south of the similar early La Tène Age ramparts Burg near Dietzhölztal - Rittershausen .

investment

The ring wall system on the Heunstein was described in 1879 by Karl August von Cohausen , who created a simple plan of the system. The Haiger forester Heinrich Behlen created at the beginning of the 20th century based on its own closer inspection a detailed plan of the plant. Archaeological excavations were carried out from 1925 to 1931 by the then director of the Nassau antiquities collection in Wiesbaden, Dr. Ferdinand Kutsch .

The facility is located along the ridge in a south-west to north-east direction over a length of about 650 m. The north-west-south-east extension is only 150 m on average and reaches a maximum of 350 m. The area protected by the wall is about 12 hectares. The course of the wall is only faintly visible in the terrain. The own spring, now called Heuweiher, was protected in a semicircle by its own annex wall, which was included in the fortification and underlines the importance of the spring for the Celts. Due to its size, the ramparts can be viewed as a Celtic hilltop settlement, as an oppidum .

Only a few finds were secured. In addition to coarse ceramics, some pieces of fine ceramics were excavated, which are assigned to the production according to the ring wall system in Dünsberg near Biebertal - Fellinghausen .

The construction of the ramparts is dated to the late Latène period and, according to the finds, was only inhabited for a relatively short time.

New finds of fibulae, which are dated to the early La Tène period, lead to the assumption that the high altitude system was settled much earlier and was only fortified later. In the vicinity of the Heunsteins also a detection of a medium to late La Tène found copper - smelting . The iron smelting in the Dill-Dietzhölze area is medieval. Although the Celts used objects made of iron, no iron metallurgy from Celtic times has been found in the surrounding area.

The ring wall is a ground monument within the meaning of the Hessian Monument Protection Act . Investigations and targeted collection of finds are subject to approval, random finds must be reported to the monument authorities.

literature

  • Eckehart Schubert: The Heunstein near Dillenburg. Leaflet for the Celtic ring wall on the upper Dill , (Ed.) Hessisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Department of Archaeological and Paleontological Preservation of Monuments, Archaeological Preservation of Monuments in Hesse, No. 71 (1989), ISBN 3-89822-071-0 . 16 pages
  • Albrecht Jockenhövel, Christoph Willms: The Dietzhölzetal project: Archaeometallurgical studies on the history and structure of medieval iron extraction in the Lahn-Dill area (Hesse) , Volume 1: Münstersche Contributions to prehistoric and early historical archeology , Verlag Marie Leidorf , 2005, ISBN 3896462792 . Pp. 32–46 and others

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