Villa Rustica (Kempten near Bingen)
The villa rustica in Bingen am Rhein in the district of Kempten was a Roman villa rustica , which was located on the northeast slope of the Rochusberg .
description
The Roman manor was built around the 1st century , with the size of the main house estimated at around 50 × 30 meters. The estate was used continuously for around 400 years and was rebuilt several times during this time by Roman, Germanic and Franconian users. Its remains have been preserved under a protective layer of loess earth . Centuries ago, the ground could have been washed away from the Rochusberg as a result of heavy rain and covered the buildings.
There were similar villae rusticae every two to three kilometers along the Roman roads . About 80 percent of the population at that time lived here. Another facility of this type was the Villa Rustica Weiler , which was about seven kilometers to the west.
Location and discovery
The villa rustica was built in a convenient location above the swamps of the Rhine lowlands and in the slipstream of the Rochusberg with a wide view of the river valley. Their remains are in the south-west of Kempten in the new building area Im Kühweg . They are located on an area that was previously used by a nursery and that is now fallow land. The former gardening family had known the archaeological importance of their property since the 1930s, as they regularly made finds in the form of antique shards while gardening. The Rhineland-Palatinate State Office for Monument Preservation in Mainz received these finds in the 1980s. After giving up the nursery, the city of Bingen acquired the site in 2006 and prohibited building to protect the archaeological relics in the ground.
excavation
On the site of the former Villa rustica, selective excavations were carried out in earlier times . In 2007 there was an excavation lasting several weeks under the direction of the then Rhineland-Palatinate state archaeologist Gerd Rupprecht . An area of around 30 m² in the area of the main house of the Roman villa was exposed. Remnants of masonry up to two meters high were discovered, which in this extent represent a special feature in the Rheinhessen region . The walls were made of rubble stones bonded with mortar . They had a smoothly painted plaster without painting, the straw additions of which date back to the 3rd century . In addition, the floor with cavities of a hypocaust was exposed. The combustion chamber with a combustion hatch was also discovered. In addition, two graves from Franconian times were discovered on the excavation site.
After the excavation work was completed, the excavation site was backfilled with earth. Although the archaeologists suspected that there were more walls, archways, windows and vaults in the ground, the villa rustica was not completely uncovered because of the costs estimated at six figures.
See also
literature
- Parts of a villa rustica in Kempten exposed. Under the direction of state curator Dr. Gerd Rupprecht now follows the documentation in: Neue Binger Zeitung , March 28, 2007 ( online ), p. 6
- Christine Tscherner: Window into Roman times in Allgemeine Zeitung from September 29, 2011 online at Historische Gesellschaft Bingen
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 57 ′ 47 " N , 7 ° 56 ′ 13.5" E