Villa rustica (Cologne-Müngersdorf)
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The Villa rustica von Köln-Müngersdorf was a Roman manor in the Müngersdorf district of Cologne , the remains of which were archaeologically examined during an excavation in the 1920s. The location of the villa rustica is about 5.2 kilometers from the western city gate of the ancient Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium , near today's Rheinenergiestadion .
Research history
In 1926, to the south of the main arena in the Müngersdorf Sports Park, later the Müngersdorfer Stadium, on the terrain called Auf der alten Steinrutsch, the construction of a play and parade meadow, the so-called “Jahnwiese”, was planned. The soil should be excavated deeply. Due to the upcoming construction work, a well-known Roman rubble site there was acutely threatened by destruction. Therefore, from March 1926, the excavation took place under the direction of Fritz Fremersdorf . The latter later wrote in his report that he “had to hurry to prepare for an in-depth scientific investigation” “to anticipate the leveling work”. Mayor Konrad Adenauer gave a “special loan” for the excavations , and the city also sent 30 unemployed men to dig. Since the construction company that was supposed to prepare the Jahnwiese went bankrupt, the archaeologists were given three weeks more than planned for their work, which was carried out until shortly before Christmas 1926.
In 1933 the results were presented as a monograph . The finds are kept in the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne.
A special significance of the excavation lies in the fact that large search cuts were made in the area. In this way, not only the main house, but also eleven outbuildings, several wells, part of the courtyard border, a cremation cemetery and a group of six sarcophagi were found. In addition, prehistoric artifacts , including Stone Age artefacts in the form of flint and ceramic remains were found.
Development
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The buildings were probably built around 50 AD on the remains of a rural half-timbered house from the Ubier period . Nothing is known about the client and his origin.
The main building (Building II) is a portico villa with corner risers and a large central utility room , for which the excavator reconstructed six construction phases. The villa had a living room heated by a hypocaust system , a bathroom and toilets, as well as a stone cellar. The roof was with bricks covered, plastered the outer wall red. Parts of columns and capitals that are considered part of the architecture have been found on the site.
Fragments of elaborate paintings from room 16 of the interior are particularly noteworthy. Pieces of marble wall cladding come from the area of the property; only a few stones remain from the destroyed mosaics. A piece of window glass was recovered from well 7.
The smaller building I is interpreted as a servants' residence, although the material template emphasizes the similarity to a (small) portico villa with a large central hall (steel type).
Other buildings are apparently barns and stables. Another cellar was found south of the main house.
Economy, infrastructure and property delimitation
The estate is one of the numerous farms in the Cologne area in Roman times. The farm was well connected to the road network: the current Aachener Straße corresponds to the trunk road known as Via Belgica from Cologne via Jülich and Maastricht to Boulogne-sur-Mer . It runs only about 700 meters north of the farm.
A small anvil from Building II or the weaving weights found in various places for textile processing point to additional economic activities .
Wells were dug to supply the villa with water, a total of seven. Numerous finds come from the wells, in addition to architectural parts, ceramics, other small finds and animal remains. The bones include those of domestic animals, which allow insight into livestock farming on such a facility. These include parts of horse, cattle, pork, sheep, goose and chicken. The remains of several dogs were also identified, including large farm dogs and a very small animal the size of a pinscher . The domestic cat was first identified for Roman Germania on the basis of the bones found in Müngersdorf.
Oyster shells indicate imported luxury foods , and wine was introduced in amphorae .
The water in the bath was disposed of through a 16-meter-long walled canal that led into a pond. There were some hollows in the courtyard area for waste disposal.
Religious testimonies
In the area of the courtyard, an inscription for Jupiter , Juno and other gods and a fragment of a matron's altar were recovered. They testify that Roman and local Gallo-Roman deities were worshiped in the villa.
Silver spoons with an inscription that could be interpreted in a Christian way were found in two graves from the 4th century (see below). Fremersdorf saw in this a mixture of Christianity and the traditional, pagan-shaped additional custom in the time of the transition from paganism to Christianity.
Graves
The manor house includes both early and middle imperial cremation graves as well as late antique body burials. The graves were found in different places. It is not uncommon for more than one group of tombs to be created in Roman villas in the Rhineland.
Cremations
Graves 48 and 49 were each individually located north of buildings XII and IX. In the northeast, apparently outside the enclosed courtyard area, there was a large cremation burial ground. In addition, a body burial was found there at grave 41. Graves 50 and 52 were found south of this larger group. The oldest cremation burials in Fremersdorf date back to the middle of the 1st century AD, the youngest to around 200. A total of 61 cremation graves were documented. In some grave pits, the walls were bricked up due to the effect of the pyre burning above, so it is busta . There is also evidence of urn burials in which the cremation took place elsewhere and the corpse burn was picked up and buried in a separate container.
The use of urns with a soul hole in grave 14, grave 22 or grave 40 as well as the skull bones of a dwarf dog from grave 2 are of cultural historical interest .
Late Roman body graves
A group of six sarcophagi (graves A – F) lie to the north-east of the buildings and still within the courtyard enclosure . The stone coffins themselves are old, but outside of the coffins B – F there were still numerous grave goods .
For grave B as well as for grave C it is worth mentioning that bronze crockery was given, a basin in grave B and a basin, bowl and jug in grave C. Grave C also includes, for example, a wooden bucket and at least 17 glass vessels. The highest quality piece is a bowl with a cut and engraved representation of a hare hunt. The skulls of seven field shrews and two field mice were kept in a glass bottle . A silver spoon bears the Christian inscription DEO GRATIAS . However, it is an everyday item that cannot be seen in a liturgical use. Another, almost identical spoon with the same inscription was part of the equipment of grave D. A coin of Emperor Valens was also found at this burial . Crockery was also added to graves E and F. The discovery of chicken bones in a plate from grave E and in a glass bowl in grave F or traces of a dried-up liquid in a bottle from grave E show that most of the vessels with their contents were placed in the grave with a specific function. According to the additions, the sarcophagi date to the 4th century. The body burial found in the area of the cremation graveyard cannot be categorized in terms of time due to the lack of additions; this also applies to another skeleton found directly by the main building.
Local history reception
To the west of where the villa was found, a street was named Am Römerhof . There is an information board at the Adenauer pond . One of the six found sarcophagi was placed on the west side of the pond.
“ Tomb robbers who forcibly opened it inflicted a painful wound by chopping off a corner of its lid. It is almost as if the coffin has opened its mouth to complain because it is ignored by the many people who pass it every day. He certainly believes that as the last witness to the Roman estate, he deserves a more dignified location. Perhaps he is already satisfied with a memorial plaque that reminds passers-by that, given its venerable age of almost 2000 years, it does not want to serve as an antique garbage can. "
Franconian burial ground
Just a little over 50 meters north of the courtyard enclosure is a Merovingian period cemetery. Since fragments of the late Roman sarcophagi were found in these Frankish burials, they were robbed in the early Middle Ages.
literature
- Fritz Fremersdorf : The Roman estate Cologne-Müngersdorf (= Roman-Germanic research. Volume 6, ISSN 0176-5337 ). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1933.
- Clemens Schweitzer: The first settlers, traces of the Romans and the Franks on Müngersdorfer soil. In: 1000 years of Müngersdorf. 980-1980. Chronicle of a place. (Festschrift for the 1000th anniversary). Bürgererverein Köln-Müngersdorf, Cologne-Müngersdorf 1980, pp. 6–30.
Web links
- Brief information about the project "VIA-Erlebnisraum Römerstraße" with photo of the excavation of the manor.
- Further brief information on the VIA project with photo from the area of the heating system during the excavation and a model reconstruction p. 20f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Kurt Schlechtriem: Lively Roman life discovered. Bürgererverein Köln-Müngersdorf eV, accessed on March 9, 2017 .
- ↑ See for example Marcus Trier , Friederike Naumann-Steckner (ed.): Zerbrechlicher Luxus. Cologne - a center of ancient glass art. Exhibition catalog RGM Cologne 2016. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7954-3144-0 with images of some grave goods from Müngersdorf p. 168.
- ↑ Schweitzer, p. 13.
- ↑ Fremersdorf p. 116.
- ↑ Max Hilzheimer: Appendix II. The animal remains. In: Fremersdorf pp. 122-130.
- ↑ Fremersdorf p. 95.
- ↑ Cf. for example Wolfgang Gaitzsch : Basic forms of Roman rural settlements in the west of the CCAA. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . 186, 1986, pp. 397-427 with plans of villa complexes with several grave areas.
- ^ Fritz Fremersdorf: The Franconian burial ground Cologne-Müngersdorf. 2 volumes. De Gruyter, Berlin 1955.
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 49.9 " N , 6 ° 52 ′ 23.6" E