Slavic castle Raddusch
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The Slavic castle Raddusch is externally largely true to the original replica of a Slavic refugee castle near the village of Raddusch in the Brandenburg Lower Lusatia, which today belongs to the town of Vetschau / Spreewald .
History of the castle
The castle is one of around 40 ring-shaped ramparts that originally existed in Niederlausitz . These castles were built in the 9th and 10th centuries by the Slavic tribe of the Lusitzi . They served as refuges for the population living in the immediate vicinity. The concentration of these castle complexes in the Niederlausitz area is attributed to the strong pressure to conquer from the Saxon side. The Wallburg was built around 880 on a weak elevation. A 10 m wide wall was built in a grate construction. Long oak beams were laid on top of each other alternately lengthways and crossways and the spaces between them were filled with earth and stones. A 5.5 m wide base trench was laid before the wall . The presence of two entrances is quite unusual for a relatively small hill fort. In the northwest in the direction of the Vorburgsiedlung and in the east gate tunnels led through the wall. Outside there were bridges over the moat into the castle. Both entrances were connected to each other in the inner surface of the castle by a 2.3 m wide path. The almost circular inner area (diameter 35-36 m) was built on with houses. Some had clay floors, and others had dome stoves .
Around 930 the castle was completely renovated, the rampart was widened and raised. The grate construction method resulted in a very stable wall construction, but because of the ephemeral wood the wall threatened to slide and had to be renewed every 40 - 50 years. In addition, there was the increasing threat from Eastern Franconia . Heinrich I founded Meissen Castle in the course of his Slav campaigns in 929 and made the Lusizi tributary in 932. Before 950, the fortifications had to be repaired again. The wall was now 20 m wide. Access to the two gate tunnels was via ramps. The diameter of the castle area was now only 28 m.
In the interior of the castle, four box-built wells were found . The oldest was dated to around 880 with the help of dendrochronological studies of its wooden beams. The youngest fountain from the last phase of the castle consists of six boxes that narrow one below the other and reaches a depth of around 12 m, unique in the West Slavic area. In the well was rich find material: pottery fragments, knives, spearheads, sharpening stones, Schlitt bone (bone skates), wooden mallets and spade and a rare, valuable " Hanse Cup " (after 950) made of brass. The most spectacular find was also in the youngest fountain: the "Idol of Raddusch", an oak split plank with a head-like finish and a perforation in the chest area. The original location in the castle is unknown. Dendrochronologically dated to the year 926, it was erected with the construction of the second castle and later ended up destroyed (ax blows, traces of fire) in the excavation of the youngest well. The wooden idol in this form is unique. In Ralswiek on Rügen an oak plank with a scratched face was discovered. The figure most closely resembles the 63 headed planks found in the now rebuilt Slavic castle Groß Raden (Mecklenburg), which served as the decorative wall of a cult hall. In 963 the Saxon margrave Gero subjugated the Lusitzi. That was the end of the Radduscher Castle. However, there are no signs of destruction, the facility was abandoned and fell into disrepair over time.
This place has been known archaeologically for a long time. In 1880 the doctor Rudolf Virchow mentioned a Slavic hill fort here. In the 20th century it was still recognizable as a ring-shaped elevation made of trees. The castle wall was plowed for agriculture until 1984 and was therefore heavily sanded. In the end only a hill 3 m high and 85 m in diameter was left. In the 1980s, the Seese-Ost open-cast lignite mine was planned to supply the surrounding power plants . Before the giant excavators ate their way through the landscape, archaeologists from the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR carried out a rescue excavation from 1984 to 1990. It was found that the Slavs were not the first settlers in this place. The excavators found Germanic remains from the Migration Period (5th / 6th centuries) under the wall : ceramic shards, miniature vessels, fibula fragments, pearls. The later castle building had leveled and destroyed a lot. However, the earliest finds at this point date from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age . They are ceramic shards that belong to the Lausitz culture . They suggest a settlement after 700 BC. Chr. No traces of the settlement and a burial ground were discovered.
When the Lübbenau and Vetschau power plants were shut down and shut down after 1990 , this meant the end of coal production on the one hand, and the open-cast mine stopped just a few hundred meters from the ground monument (today the Bischdorfer See ) on the other . The Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the State Archaeological Museum decided to rebuild the almost completely examined facility at the historic site with the financial means of mining renovation. The Slavic castle Raddusch is representative of a large number of cultural assets that have been irretrievably lost due to the open-cast lignite mining.
Not far from Raddusch Castle there were other similar structures, such as the Slavic castle Tornow , which was probably built in the 7th century. The diameter of the walled area was about 25 m.
Today's castle
The exterior of today's castle is largely true to the original. The shape, structure and dimensions of the wall, the ditch and the gates have been secured by the excavation. Other details were also taken from other castle excavations in Niederlausitz. The inside of the wall offers a special feature - it is accessible. Because the wood-earth construction of the wall was only faded into a hollow concrete body on the outside of the new building. Inside the wall there is now a museum and the castle restaurant. With the permanent exhibition “Archeology in Lower Lusatia”, the museum offers a journey through 12,000 years of settlement history from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages with Slavic castle building.
In the 1000 m² castle courtyard, which is used as a terrace for the restaurant and as an event location, there are reconstructed storage buildings and a fountain replica.
The operator of the system is REG Vetschau mbH.
The federal motorway 15 runs within sight of the castle . Visitors to the castle often combine their stay with a visit to the adjacent Spreewald, which can be reached cheaply by boat via the village of Raddusch.
literature
- Michael Ullrich: Slavic castle Raddusch - A rescue excavation in the Niederlausitz brown coal mining area . in: Publications on Brandenburg State Archeology , Vol. 34, Wünsdorf, Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum, 2003, pp. 121–194. ISBN 3-910011-29-2 .
- Michael Ullrich: A medieval hill fort in Niederlausitz near Raddusch, Kr. Calau in: Archaeological reports from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Vol. 1, 1994, pp. 60-67
- Harriet Bönisch, Slawenburg Raddusch - Archeology in Lower Lusatia , 2004
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Joachim Herrmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1985.
Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 17.6 " N , 14 ° 1 ′ 49.3" E