Sulcus primigenius

Drawing of the Sulcus primigenius of the city of Aquileia in the year 181 BC BC, later depiction from the middle of the 1st century AD.

The sulcus primigenius ( Latin "very first furrow") is a furrow drawn in a circle with a plow in the ancient settlement culture, which has the ditch on the outside and the bulge on the inside. It is the symbolic first wall around a city to be founded, the furrow grows later for digging and the bulge to the wall. As a consequence, the furrow is interrupted at the points where the gates will later be located.

The sulcus primigenius is different from the pomerium . The pomerium was probably the wall ranger. The pomerium is always continuous, the sulcus primigenius not. The process itself is called urvare in Latin . This is where * urbare belongs , a word from which Urbs is derived.

literature

• Johann Jakob Bachofen, The Sage of Tanaquil , p. 312f