Lautertal-Limes

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The "Sibyl Trail" in the Lautertal between Owen and Dettingen unter Teck

The Lautertal Limes (also: Sibyllenspur or Sybillenspur ) is a Roman border fortification from the early 2nd century between the Neckar and the Swabian Alb . It stretches over a length of 23 kilometers, running in a straight line, from today's municipality of Köngen am Neckar (Latin: Grinario ) in the northwest to Donnstetten (Latin: Clarenna ) on the Swabian Alb in the southeast.

Research history

The Sibyllenspur called, about 600 meters long strip Cropmark in Lautertal between Dettingen and Owen had long been known. It has been interpreted differently in the past and is also backed up with a legend according to which it was the trace of the Sibylle's carriage. Soil scientists and geologists saw a geological fault in the strip or suspected an old processional path or street made by human hands . The first investigations were carried out in 1976 by the soil scientist and geologist Siegfried Müller in collaboration with the Swabian Alb Association . The findings of this investigation resulted in a ground monument of a rectilinear moat, which was classified as Roman by a broken glass find. The Kirchheim local researcher Eugen Schweitzer brought up the thesis that the sibyl trail as Limes is part of the large European limitation network .

In July, the dry summer 1976 by the aerial archaeological prospecting of Walter Sölter the small castle on the bunny hill near Häusle Donnstetten discovered. This find reinforced the thesis of a Roman Limes between Köngen and Donnstetten. This thesis was confirmed in the same year by the then archaeological monument conservator in the Stuttgart district, Dieter Planck , who also evaluated aerial photographs from 1976 by Alfred Brugger. However, the thesis of the limitation network could not be proven archaeologically . In 1978, Eugen Schweitzer first described the Sibylline as "Limes in Lautertal, which connects the Neckar Limes from Kastell Köngen with the Alblimes near Kastell Donnstetten". Further investigations showed that the Lautertal Limes consisted of a palisade and three parallel trenches. In contrast to the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes , which was protected by two trenches, the trenches here run on the outside of the palisade.

The Dettingen unter Teck fort was discovered behind the Limes through aerial photographs by Alfred Brugger . The subsequent archaeological excavations by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office in 1982 showed that the finding was a Roman military camp for the direct protection of the Lautertal Limes.

limes

True-to-scale attempt to reconstruct the Limes fortifications in the Lautertal

An excavation by the State Monuments Office in Baden-Württemberg in 1982 had the following result: The Sibylline consists of three parallel trenches, of which the outer trench (1) in the northeast is a 3.20 meter wide and 1.60 meter deep pointed trench . To the southwest, at a distance of 6 meters, there is a 2.60 meter wide and 1.4 meter deep Spitz trench (2) and behind this at a distance of 1.5 meters a 70 centimeter wide and 1.10 meter deep ditch (3), in stood on the wooden post of a palisade . It is a wooden wall on the enemy side, against which an earth wall ( vallum ) was probably piled on the inside . The excavation confirmed the small fort behind the trenches recognized by Dieter Planck in the aerial photo .

During these excavations, two fragments of Terra Sigillata vessels were found in the trench . The Sigillata could be assigned to the potter Satto of the Terra Sigillata Manufactory in Schemmerich near Falkenberg in Gallia Belgica around the year 120 to 130 AD based on the manufacture seal .

The finding classifies the sibyl trail with its two pointed trenches and the wood-earth wall as the long-sought connection between the Domitian Neckar Limes and the Alblimes.

history

This fortification, which connected the Neckarlimes with the Alblimes, was probably built in or soon after AD 98 under Emperor Trajan together with the Neckar-Odenwald-Limes . The Lautertal-Limes was abandoned in the 2nd century, terminus post quem is the time around 125 AD, because the above-mentioned fragments from the years 120/130 AD were found in the backfilling of the trenches.

This dating has led to the assumption that the abandonment of the Lautertal-Limes in terms of time and factuality with the moving forward of the border of the Roman province of Raetia from the line Kastell Donnstetten ( Clarenna ) - Kastell Ursprung ( Ad Lunam ) - Kastell Heidenheim ( Aquileia ) - Danube ( Danuvius ) around 40 kilometers to the north. This process, which has not yet been researched in detail, took place around the year 122 AD under Emperor Hadrian . In Köngen, the previous wooden fort was replaced by a stone fort around 125 AD , and this construction measure may well be related to the leveling of the Lautertal Limes and the shifting of the border in Raetia.

The architect Eugen Schweitzer speculated in his dissertation that the Lautertal Limes as decumanus maximus could have been a main orientation axis for the measurement of the newly gained area between the Neckar and the Swabian Alb and with the “Limes” mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus as the boundary of the bay of the Roman Empire ”. In this context it is noteworthy that the decumani maximi of the Neckar forts Köngen (Grinario) and Cannstatt are aligned in the same way. The Lautertal-Limes could have given the Agri decumates their name.

The borderline in the area of ​​the Lautertal-Limes

However, the Roman-Germanic border in the period from 125 to 159 AD between Cannstatt or Köngen in the west and Lorch in the east is unclear.

  • The route is possible directly in a west-east direction from Cannstatt to Lorch, i.e. through the Remstal . A Roman road has run there since the Limes was moved forward around AD 159/160. However, this could also have existed a few years earlier and in this quiet time for the Romans in Germania, without further military protection, marked the border of the empire.
  • The borderline from Köngen to the east through the Filstal is also possible . The stone expansion of the Köngen Fort around 125 AD speaks for this course, because this expansion would hardly have been worthwhile for a fort in the hinterland, as well as the existence of the Eislingen-Salach fort in the Filstal around 15 kilometers south of , which has not been dated so far Lorch. According to the aerial photo, this fort was a pure wood-earth fort that was never built in stone, which clearly speaks for a short useful life. It probably also marked the border between Upper Germany and Raetia; it is not yet known which province it belonged to, which unit was there and what its Latin name was.

One of the main functions of the Lautertal-Limes was apparently to secure the Roman road between Köngen and Urspring , which was part of the strategically important long-distance route Mainz-Augsburg and in this section rose to the Albhöhe. It is strange that this road ran northeast of the fortification, i.e. outside the border of the Roman Empire marked and protected by the Limes (cf. Alblimes ).

This observation has led to the objection that the name Limes for this border fortification is not exactly exact, since, strictly speaking, the road running northeast of it within sight formed the border of the empire, i.e. the Limes.

The legend of the Sibylle von der Teck

The legend of the Sibylle von der Teck entwines around the sibyl trail. According to this, Sibylle von der Teck, who lives in the Sibyllenloch , a cave in the Teckberg at the foot of Teck Castle , is said to have caused this trail with her car when she left Teck cross-country forever out of grief over her three failed sons on a wagon pulled by huge cats .

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to Filtzinger, Aalen, p. 32ff.
  2. ↑ Planck 2005; Schweitzer 1983
  3. ↑ Schweitzer was referring to the research of Siegfried Müller in 1976
  4. ^ After Meinrad Schaab , Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History . Volume 1: General History. Part 1: From prehistoric times to the end of the Hohenstaufen. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-91465-X , p. 20.
  5. ^ After Meinrad Schaab, Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History. Volume 1: General History. Part 1: From prehistoric times to the end of the Hohenstaufen. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-91465-X , p. 21.

literature

Monographs

  • Rolf Götz: The Sibylle von der Teck, The legend and its roots in the Sibylle myth . (Series of publications by the Kirchheim unter Teck City Archives, Vol. 25). Gottlieb and Osswald, Kirchheim unter Teck 1999. ISBN 3-925589-23-6

Essays

  • Philipp Filtzinger : Limes Museum Aalen . (Writings of the Limes Museum Aalen, 26). Society for Pre u. Early history in Württemberg and Hohenzollern e. V., Stuttgart 1971.
  • Walter A. Koch: The wreath of legends about Sibylle von der Teck . In: Reprint from the Teck-Rundschau year 1951, nos. 293, 297 and 300. Gottlieb & Oswald, Kirchheim / Teck 1951.
  • Walter A. Koch: The wreath of legends about Sibylle von der Teck . 4th edition. Spieth, Stuttgart 1986. ISBN 3-88093-001-5
  • Ernst Meier: German sagas, customs and traditions from Swabia . P. 22f. Metzler, Stuttgart 1852.
  • Siegfried Müller: Old and new from the sibyl trail . In: Blätter des Schwäbischen Albverein, 83. S. 180f. Swabian Alb Association, Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1977.
  • Dieter Planck : A new Roman Limes in Württemberg. In: Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Württemberg u. a. (Ed.): Archaeological excavations Baden-Württemberg 1982 . P. 97ff. Theiss, Stuttgart 1983.
  • Dieter Planck: Dettingen under Teck. Lautertallimes. In: Dieter Planck (Ed.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg . Pp. 61-63 Theiss, Stuttgart 2005. ISBN 3-8062-1555-3
  • Dieter Planck: Dettingen under Teck. Lautertallimes . In: Philipp Filtzinger, Dieter Planck, Bernhard Cämmerer (eds.): The Romans in Baden-Württemberg . 3rd edition, pp. 268-270. Theiss, Stuttgart 1986. ISBN 3-8062-0287-7
  • Eugen Schweitzer: Contributions to the study of Roman limitation traces in southwest Germany . P. 24ff. Dissertation, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart 1983.
  • Eugen Schweitzer: Assumptions about the Sibylline In: Swabian homeland. Journal of the Swabian Heimatbund. Vol. 29, Issue 1, p. 42. TC Druck, Stuttgart 1978.

See also