Via Belgica

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Copy of a giant column of Jupiter on a traffic island on the L 136. The original fragments were found in 1970 at the Hambach opencast mine.
Copy of a Roman milestone , placed on the western edge of the Sophienhöhe. A distance of XVI Leugae (35.5 km) to Cologne is indicated on the stone . Location: Zülpich- Hoven.

Via Belgica (also: Via Agrippinensis ) is a modern name for a 400 km long Roman military road that connected Cologne ( Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium ) with the Atlantic coast. It began in Cologne as an extension of today's Schildergasse ( decumanus maximus ) and led via Jülich (Iuliacum), Heerlen (Coriovallum), Maastricht (Trajectum ad Mosam), Tongeren (Aduatuca Tungrorum) to Bavay (Bagacum), where it branched out: A Branch led to Boulogne-sur-Mer ( Gesoriacum ) and another via Cambrai to Amiens (Samarobriva). In addition, the military road from the Mediterranean via Lyon and Reims to Tournai crossed the Via Belgica in Bavay .

The name Via Belgica was the guiding principle of an international regional cooperation initiated by the city of Maastricht in 1999 and then became popular at the Regionale 2008

Road to the border

Via Belgica started from the central west gate of Cologne's city wall, the floor plan of the gate is on the square to the east in front of the Basilica of St. Apostles, west of Neumarkt. Today's Aachener Straße from Cologne to Königsdorf corresponds to its course . ( B 55 )

In Weiden , an elaborately designed burial chamber was excavated in 1843 , which adjoined the Via Belgica to the north 8.6 km west of the Cologne city wall and belonged to a Roman estate, a villa rustica .

In Königsdorf, the route is interrupted at the intersection with Bonnstrasse and is now still partially preserved in Königsdorfer Strasse Bergstrasse, Hohlweg, Dechant-Hansen-Allee. After the Villa Pauli park, you will reach the Königsdorfer Wald at the "Klingelpütz". The Burgus Heidenburg was excavated here. On the other side follow Rote-Kreuz-Straße and Im Rauland in Bergheim-Quadrath-Ichendorf , and furthermore, when the sewage treatment plant in Quadrath-Ichendorf was built, the course of the road was apparently shown, as the southern fence does not correspond to the map shown, but the course the Via Belgica follows. It continues as Römerstrasse in Bergheim-Thorr and Elsdorf-Grouven , as a dirt road between Grouven and Elsdorf and as Cologne-Aachener Strasse in Elsdorf.

The Hambach opencast mine is located in the further course . Before this hole, which is around 400 m deep today, was dug, the road was archaeologically examined. There were 12 layers of road on top of each other. The route continues as the Kölner Landstrasse and Römerstrasse from Jülich- Stetternich to Jülich.

Behind Jülich the course hardly continues in today's streets. The Via Belgica to the west of Jülich was abandoned after the end of Roman rule in the fourth century in favor of a route to Aachen, the route fell into disrepair and the settlements were abandoned. It was not until the 1980s that the entire course of the road as far as Rimburg (today a district of Übach-Palenberg ), as far as the Dutch border there, could be documented. Only then was a Roman vicus identified in Baesweiler , during which it was excavated in Rimburg as early as 1926, and bridge foundations for the wooden bridge over the Wurm were also found there. Only in Boscheln do today's Friedensstrasse and Brünestrasse follow the course of the Via Belgica.

Course of the road in the Netherlands

The Roman road ran through today's province of Limburg in the Netherlands for about forty kilometers and crossed the Maas in Maastricht . The place probably got its name, composed of the traditional Traiectum ad Mosam or Mosae Traiectum ("Maasübergang"). Secured is a Roman Meuse bridge from the time of Emperor Augustus , which was used until 1275 and was an extension of today's Plankstraat about 200 m south of the stone Sint Servaas bridge , which was built in the 13th century and is still in use .

Only individual sections of the route are known between Maastricht and Rimburg, for example in Heerlen and Voerendaal , but numerous finds in the vicinity of the presumed course of the road have been confirmed, including burial grounds and villas.

Found objects

Fragments of milestones come from the vicinity of Baesweiler and from Steinstrasse-Lich; a third fragment is the Tetz stone.

Even today, artefacts from Roman times lying open in the hallway are discovered or uncovered during excavations. It was not until 2008 that a citizen west of Koslar saw a fragment of a milestone from the 3rd / 4th Founded in the 19th century, on which part of the inscription could be read as FILIO , which could be added to Filio Augusti (son of the emperor), a customary date on milestones of their list. The piece is kept today as a testimony in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn and shown as an example of civic engagement.

See also


literature

  • Wolfgang Gaitzsch : Römische Straße and Prussian milestones in front of the Sophienhöhe near Jülich (= Rheinische Kunststätten. Issue 375). Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-88094-724-4 .
  • Landschaftsverband Rheinland Rheinische Bodendenkmalpflege (Hrsg.): Erlebnisraum Römerstraße Via Belgica (materials for the preservation of soil monuments in the Rhineland 18/2) . Print'n'Press-Verlag, Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-935522-01-4 .
  • Jeanne-Nora Andrikopolou-Strack: On foot, on horseback, in a carriage - on the Via Belgica from Cologne to Rimburg in Egon Heeg, Axel Kurth, Peter Schreiner (ed.), Königsdorf im Rheinland, Pulheimer Contributions to History, 34th special publication , Pulheim, ISBN 978-3-927765-53-5 , pp. 58-73.
  • Marcel Perse: Roman road Via Belgica. Section Cologne – Jülich. Straight from the Rhine to the Rur. 1st edition. JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-7616-2364-0 .
  • Susanne Jenter: On the move with the Romans, Via Belgica from Cologne to Rimburg in 6 stages , JP Bachem Verlag Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-7616-2783-9 .

Web links

Commons : Via Belgica  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

Via Belgica-kaart.png
Bagacum road junction
  1. ↑ Cologne, Schildergasse 50 ° 56 ′ 11.5 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 4.3 ″  E
  2. ↑ Via Belgica ( memento of April 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) at Regionale 2008, accessed on October 9, 2015.
  3. ↑ Criticism of the designation (accessed Oct. 2008)
  4. ↑ Cologne, Aachener Strasse 50 ° 56 ′ 11.9 ″  N , 6 ° 55 ′ 38 ″  E
  5. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , Rhein-Erft, from March 26, 2015, p. 38 (accessed March 29, 2015)
  6. ↑ Quadrath-Ichendorf, Rote-Kreuz-Straße 50 ° 56 ′ 26.3 ″  N , 6 ° 41 ′ 30 ″  E
  7. ↑ Quadrath-Ichendorf, Im Rauland 50 ° 56 ′ 22.9 ″  N , 6 ° 40 ′ 24 ″  E
  8. ↑ Thorr, Römerstr. 50 ° 56 '15.7 "  N , 6 ° 38' 4.3"  E
  9. ↑ Grouven, Römerstr. 50 ° 56 '10.3 "  N , 6 ° 36' 19.2"  E
  10. ↑ Elsdorf, Cologne-Aachener-Strasse 50 ° 56 ′ 2.1 ″  N , 6 ° 33 ′ 41.9 ″  E
  11. ↑ Jülich, Kölner Landstrasse 50 ° 55 ′ 35.7 ″  N , 6 ° 25 ′ 1.7 ″  E
  12. ↑ Jülich, Römerstr. 50 ° 55 '26.7 "  N , 6 ° 22' 2.3"  E
  13. ↑ Jeanne-Nora Andrikopolou-Strack: The vicus of Baesweiler , p. 71 ff. In: Landschaftsverband Rheinland - Rheinische Bodendenkmalpflege (ed.): Erlebnisraum Römerstraße - Via Belgica . print'n'press-Verlag Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-935522-01-4
  14. ↑ Ajo Hinzen, André Simon: A first picture of the Via Belgica is created ... - preliminary planning work in the German-Dutch border area p. 9ff. in: Landschaftsverband Rheinland - Rheinische Bodendenkmalpflege (Hrsg.): Erlebnisraum Römerstraße - Via Belgica . print'n'press-Verlag Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-935522-01-4
  15. ^ Wolfgang Gaitzsch : Römische Straße and Prussian milestones in front of the Sophienhöhe near Jülich. Cologne 1992. p. 6.