Posted on 09/24/2009 10:15:27 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
WIESBADEN, Germany — A team of archaeology students and experts believe they have unearthed remnants of a Roman settlement from the second or third century near the construction site of an Army housing project, but the discovery isn’t expected to affect the project.
The team, from nearby Mainz University, discovered a Roman coin, pieces of pottery, roof tiles, decorated bricks and 23 pieces of raw lead. The students also believe they have found the wall outlines of a building.
"We think it’s from the first to third century after Christ," said Dr. Guntram Schwitalla, a district archaeologist in Hessen. "If it’s from the second century A.D., it would be a civilian building and we didn’t expect this. We expected only military buildings."
The items were found at the excavation site where a road is being built for a new $133 million Army Corps of Engineers housing project. The project is part of a planned expansion at Wiesbaden Army Airfield, which is expecting an influx of troops in the coming years.
Unless the team discovers something unexpected, construction on the housing complex should begin on schedule, said student Guido Schnell, an excavator at the site.
Road and utilities construction will start in November with work on the housing beginning next spring, according to Roger Gerber, chief of the transformation stationing management office at Wiesbaden Army Airfield.
Schnell said the team focused on the site because of the nearby water supply of the Rhine River; the soil, which is favorable for agriculture, and aerial photographs of a nearby Roman army training camp.
"Also, we are not far away from Mainz, which was known as Moguntiacum, a big Roman city," said Schnell. "Up to four legions of the Roman army were stationed here, which is significant because there were 25 to 30 legions in the entire army."
Christiane Dostewitz, a supervising archaeologist on the project, said the site seems to be a civilian settlement, but noted they will have a better idea as the excavation proceeds.
Ping.
Had to be Wiesbaden.
I once took a metal detector to the back fields of Gablingen Kaserne near Augsburg.
This was once an airfield and was where Rudolf Hess took off on his flight to London.
Didn’t find anything worthwhile on my short venture (didn’t know if I was allowed to do it)but did come across what looked to be bunches of old truck parts.
Cool.
btt
Ping - There is a lot of really old stuff under the ground in Europe.
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Thanks Jet Jaguar. |
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Whoops! Thanks Tainan!
I always hoped that someone would find the place(s) in the Teuterboro forrest where the Roman legions were decimated. Should be a lot of broken weapons and such, even though the German victors would have tried to pick the battlefield clean.
I thought we were taking troops out of Germany, If I recall, they were very unfriendly to us being there.
The Romans located and cleaned up the site, then tried to hunt down Arminius; kicked his ass (it was close for a while), he ran off out of reach, and about eight years later was killed by one of his relatives (close family I guess). The Romans reoccupied what they’d lost, and added to it. It’s a common misconception that the Romans never recovered from it. What they didn’t recover from in the long run was the depletion of the Gallic population in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s victory in the Gallic Wars. There had been a continual push westward down the steppe (a push that earlier on had got the Celts into western Europe in the first place) and that continued, getting worse as the climate cooled off.
There’s always something left behind.
I found this website which has a lot of archeological evidence in the way of relics found and maps which conform to Roman descriptions.
http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg04.html#Archaeological
I’ve always wondered what happened to the Eagles. Apparently they were eventually recovered by the Romans after some years. (same website, different page)
The Romans did their thing with the dead (what was left of ‘em) and the final battle site was located in recent decades. The 19th century German monument is nowhere near it. :’)
save for later
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