Vicus Wiesloch
The Vicus Wiesloch (from Latin Vicus ) was a Roman settlement in today's Wiesloch . The name of the settlement is unknown.
Find history
In 1851 , Roman coins and processed zinc and lead ores came to light inside the mining industry in the "Hessel" area between Wiesloch, Nussloch and Baiertal . In 1896 , two small houses with a cellar and a sandstone relief of the goddess Epona were found in what is now known as the Vicus area .
In 1991 , excavations were carried out by the State Monuments Office, during which a Mithraic temple and a Gallo-Roman temple were uncovered. Until 1996 an area of around 6 hectares was archaeologically examined.
location
The Roman village was on the Leimbach at the intersection of the Roman road Lopodunum - Basilia and the road Noviomagus Nemetum - Bad Wimpfen .
description
As in other Roman villages, the plots were long and rectangular and the gabled houses faced the street. In the front entrance area, usually roofed like a portico , were usually the workshops or sales rooms. Behind it were the storage and living rooms. The cellar was in the front part of the house. Wells and garbage pits were in the rear property area. The extension of the village around the year 200 was about 300 m from north to south and about 190 m from west to east.
The cemetery and the public bath building have not yet been discovered.
The vicus was also connected to a Villa Rustica in Walldorf via a canal.
In addition to the usual craft businesses, it can be assumed that mining had an economic importance for the place. There was a high-quality Gallo-Roman temple and a mithra room measuring 5.70 × 4.60 m. The latter only had room for 6-8 men and was outside the village, as two burials had taken place in the immediate vicinity. At the altar, a lump of galena, probably intended as an offering, was discovered. The Gallo-Roman temple on the other hand was located in the south of the vicus near the Leimbach and was of greater structural and cultural importance.
history
According to the finds, the vicus was probably founded around 110/120 AD. The houses were initially built in wood and half-timbered construction. In the middle of the 2nd century there was a major fire in the settlement, after which it was rebuilt. This time the stone construction method was used for the building foundations, the cellars and the wells. Before the fire, the plots were usually around 25 m long, but later the plots are more often 40 m long.
In the second quarter of the 3rd century the vicus in Wiesloch was destroyed. An Alemanni invasion is suspected . Although it was rebuilt with a poorer quality of construction, it ultimately had to be finally abandoned with the Limes Falls around AD 260. The Mithraic temple was abandoned around 250 and its basement filled with rubbish.
The settlement on the old Roman road could have retained its importance even during the migration period . Archaeological finds from the 3rd to the 8th century even seem possible in the far west of Wiesloch to have a continuity of settlement beyond that period.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wagner, Ernst; Haug, Ferdinand [Hrsg.]: Sites and finds from prehistoric, Roman and Alemannic-Franconian times in the Grand Duchy of Baden (Volume 2): The Badische Unterland: districts of Baden, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Mosbach - Tübingen (1911), p. 321f.
- ↑ Andreas Hensen: The Mithraeum in the Vicus of Wiesloch. In: Archäologische Nachrichten aus Baden 51/52 (1994), pp. 30–37.
- ↑ Uwe Gross: Testimonies from the time of writing - finds from the migration period and the early Middle Ages in Wiesloch, in: Wiesloch - Contributions to History Vol. 2, Ubstadt-Weiher 2001, p. 27.