Location: Lower Austria Map
Area: 10 km2
Info: Petronell Carnuntum Hauptstrasse 296 (02163) 3370
Open: 21 Mar- 15 Nov: 9am- 5pm daily
Bad Deutsch Altenburg, Badgasse 42
Tel. (02165) 62480
Open: Mar- Nov: 10am- 5pm Tue- Sun
noon- 5pm Mon
Nov- Mar: 11am- 5pm Sat- Sun
Carnuntum Archaeological Park is an open air museum situated in the Lower Austria.
Carnuntum is the name of a multi-period legionary camp, an
auxiliary fort and a camp town that served to protect the Upper
Pannonian Limes. From the 2nd century AD, the civilian town of
Carnuntum was also the administrative center of the Roman province
of (Upper) Pannonia. It is the most important and most extensively
researched ancient archaeological site in Austria and is located in
the municipal areas of Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad
Deutsch-Altenburg, Lower Austria. It is also the only legionary camp
between Regensburg and Belgrade that has not been built over in a
modern way, making it one of the most important archaeological
monuments on the Danube Limes, parts of which were declared a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in 2021.
The region around a Celtic
settlement and power center that has not yet been localized and that
the historian Velleius Paterculus described as "Carnunto, qui locus
regni Norici" (located in the kingdom of Noricum) became a gathering
point for the 1st century AD Expansion of the Romans into free
Germania (Barbaricum). There, an important connection to the south
branched off from the Limes Road. One of the most important
settlement and defense centers in the northern provinces of the
empire soon developed at the foothills of the Little Carpathians.
Together with the auxiliary camp of Győr, the legionary camp in
Carnuntum is one of the oldest Roman fortifications on the Pannonian
Limes. Carnuntum owed its rapid rise, among other things, to its
favorable location at the crossing point of two old transcontinental
trade routes and the legionary and auxiliary camps, in which up to
6,500 men were stationed at times. The juxtaposition of legions and
auxiliary troops in particular emphasized the military-political
rank of this location for the Romans. The castles of Carnuntum were
repeatedly at the center of important political and military events
during the Roman rule over Pannonia.
The oldest
archaeological evidence from Roman times dates to the middle of the
1st century AD. After the establishment of a temporary winter camp
under the then general and later emperor Tiberius (14-37), solid
wood emerged during the reign of Claudius (41-54). -Earth storage
and two civilian settlements. Around 50,000 people were already
living there at the beginning of the 2nd century. The legionary camp
was rebuilt in stone around 100 AD. In the middle of the 2nd century
a cavalry fort was also built. During the Marcomannic Wars, Emperor
Marcus Aurelius (161–180) led his campaigns from Carnuntum into the
tribal areas north of the Danube. At the end of the 2nd century the
governor of Upper Pannonia, Septimius Severus (193-211), was
proclaimed emperor by the Danube legions; This resulted in another
massive economic upswing for Pannonia. In late antiquity, a base for
the Danube fleet was set up in Carnuntum. In 308 AD the Tetrarchs
held the Imperial Conference of Carnuntum there. In the middle of
the 4th century a severe earthquake devastated the region. This
natural disaster, combined with the steady reduction in border
troops and the disastrous effects of mass migration, finally
initiated their economic and demographic decline. In the late 4th
century, Emperor Valentinian I (364-375) used the already very
run-down place as an army camp for a campaign against Transdanubian
tribal associations. In the course of the 5th century, the legionary
camp was given up and abandoned by its Roman inhabitants. Between
Limesstrasse and Bernsteinstrasse lies the so-called Heidentor, a
partially preserved triumphal monument from the 4th century, today
the symbol of the Carnuntum region.
The name Carnuntum/Karnuntum was taken from the Celtic predecessor
settlement and would thus point to the Celtic deity Cernunnos in one of
its name forms, since the common root of the names carn means horn. It
could also be derived from an Illyrian idiom and mean 'stone wall, stone
building, stone city, settlement on the rock or on the stone', but this
is now assumed to be obsolete.
for the first time by the
chronicler Velleius Paterculus,
later also in two places in Pliny,
with the geographer Claudius Ptolemy,
in the self-reflections of Mark
Aurel (the second book of this work was written by the emperor in
Carnuntum),
in the Historia Augusta,
in the Notitia Dignitatum,
by the late antique chronicler Ammianus Marcellinus,
in the Codex
Theodosianus,
in the Annales regni Francorum,
and in the main
geographic sources,
in the Itinerary Antonini
and in the Tabula
Peutingeriana
mentioned.
The village of Petronell-Carnuntum is located between Vienna
(Vindobona) and Bratislava on the rivers Danube and Leitha. Ancient
Carnuntum was about 40 kilometers east of Vienna, directly on the south
bank of the Danube (Danuvius) at the Danube breakthrough through the
Small Carpathians, past which the river flows through the Hainburg Gate
(Porta Hungarica) near the mouth of the March. The steep bank of the
Danube is interrupted at the Pfaffenberg near Deutsch-Altenburg by the
valley of a small stream, which offered easy access to the Danube. The
Braunsberg, the 480 meter high Hundsheimer Berg and its foothills, the
Pfaffenberg, offered an excellent all-round view of the Marchfeld, the
Donauauen and the mouth of the March. At Carnuntum, the Amber Road,
which came from the north through the March Valley, also crossed the
Danube.
The ancient, ten square kilometer settled area stretched
in the west from Petronell-Carnuntum to the Pfaffenberg near Bad
Deutsch-Altenburg in the east. In the north they encountered dense
alluvial forests. In the south, the settlement area extended to about
the route of today's federal highway 9. Due to the natural terrain edge
in this section, the camp was about 40 meters above the southern bank of
the Danube. The topography and hydrology of the banks of the Danube have
changed steadily since ancient times. The area at Carnuntum was also
subject to constant changes. The reason for this is that the river has
always sought new ways through the country and has influenced the flora
and fauna with its bed load and flood waters by forming new river bends.
At that time, the main stream probably ran a little further north.
Carnuntum initially belonged to the territory of neighboring
Noricum. However, it was annexed to Pannonia under Tiberius because of
the constant danger of barbarian raids in its sector. After the province
was divided into Pannonia superior (Upper Pannonia) and Pannonia
inferior (Lower Pannonia) under Trajan (98-117), the place first came to
Pannonia Superior and from the imperial reform of Diocletian (284-305)
belonged to the newly founded Pannonia Prima (Diocese of Illyria).
The possession of Carnuntum as the crossroads of two busy transcontinental trade and transport routes was extremely important for the Romans. At that time, the Danube was the fastest connection between the west and the east of the Roman Empire. From the legionary camp, in addition to controlling the river, its crossings (Stopfenreuth, Burgberg von Devin) and the mouth of the March to the north, traffic on the Amber Road leading from the north (Baltic Sea) to the south (Italy) could also be monitored. In addition to the customs revenue, import bans, export embargoes, etc. could also influence the economy. The other tasks of the crew included border security and signal transmission at the Danube Limes. From the camp plateau you also had a good view of the Marchfeld.
The legionary fort as the center of the greater Carnuntum area played
an important role in the development of the road network. Like the camps
in Vindobona and Arrabona, it stood at the end of important trunk roads,
two of which met at the Colonia Claudia Savaria and from there continued
to Italy.
The Amber Road was a major trade route connecting what
was then inhospitable, underdeveloped northern Europe (the Baltic
States) with the ancient centers of trade and crafts in Italy on the
Adriatic and the rest of the Mediterranean. It probably crossed the
Danube near the Pfaffenberg near Stopfenreuth and reached the city
limits in the south-west. From there it was identical to the so-called
grave road, since graves were preferably laid there outside the
settlement area since the early imperial period. It then ran along the
western shore of Lake Neusiedl and connected Carnuntum with the nearest
town of Scarbantia (Sopron), as finds of milestones near Oslip and Bruck
an der Leitha testify.
The Limes road (via iuxta Danuvium)
connected Gaul and the Rhine provinces with the middle and lower Danube
and subsequently with the Greek east of the empire. There are different
assumptions about their course. In the direction of Vienna, she probably
followed the banks of the Danube. It is unclear whether a road down the
Danube, leading in the direction of Kastell Gerulata/Rusovce, also
belonged to the main line of the Limes road, or whether it led directly
out of the southern gate and then continued in a southeasterly
direction. About 150 meters south of the railway line, a branch off the
Limes road was uncovered. It led through the valley of the Altenburger
Bach to Prellenkirchen and from there to the forts of Gerulata and Ad
Flexum (Mosonmagyaróvár). A second led at right angles to Gräberstrasse
and then to Hundsheim and Edelstal. Plot and field boundaries are still
based on its route today. It probably existed since the 1st century AD.
Ceramic finds in Slovakia suggest that Carnuntum was also directly
connected to the Váh valley area by a road. Their route probably led
over the eastern slopes of the Little Carpathians from the Danube
crossing near Bratislava to Trnava.
The west-east camp road is
largely identical to the course of federal road 9. Its north-south
counterpart continued outside the camp, with the exception of its north
side. To the east it runs parallel to today's federal highway to the
outskirts of Deutsch-Altenburg. There, however, their traces are lost
due to the dense development. It probably led over the Kirchberg to the
foot of the Pfaffenberg and from there to the mouth of the March.
beginnings
The remains of the legionary camp may have been clearly
visible until the 15th century. In 1668, the court librarian of Emperor
Leopold I, Peter Lambeck (1628-1680), reported on "... old walls that
still stand out quite high above ground, the collapsed vault, vulgo the
old cellar, the four gates and crossways." The areas of the camp, which
stood directly on the steep banks of the Danube have fallen into the
river over the centuries due to erosion. Due to the regulation of the
river at the end of the 19th century, these landslides have largely come
to a standstill. In contrast to most other legion sites on the Rhine and
Danube Limes, the Carnuntine camp is a completely undeveloped
archaeological site. Its area was used exclusively for agriculture and
offers the ideal conditions for large-scale archaeological prospecting
projects such as geophysical measurements and, in particular, aerial
archaeological investigations. Since the 1960s, the aerial photo archive
of the Institute for Prehistory and Early History at the University of
Vienna has held more than 1,500 vertical and oblique photographs from
the Carnuntum region. Their evaluation provided a large amount of
information on the ancient buildings and infrastructure of the camp
town. If you bring together all the excavation and prospecting results,
you get a very detailed overall plan of the legionary camp and the
adjacent canabae legionis. The barracks, the central building, the
principia (staff building), the praetorium (accommodation for the
legionary legate), the valetudinarium (camp hospital), three of the six
tribune houses (officers' accommodation) and three larger farm buildings
in the eastern half of the camp were almost completely excavated.
18th century
Until the late 18th century, the ruins of the
"heydnic town" were removed by the peasants because they made it
difficult to work in the fields. The stones were reused as building
material, the marble burned to lime. In 1726, the officer and scholar
Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli (1658–1730) drew up a rough sketch of the
legionary camp for his work Danubius pannonico-Mysicus. At this time
there were obviously still large connected remains of the camp walls,
which were popularly referred to as "The Old Castle". The east gate in
particular was probably relatively well preserved at the time. On the
occasion of a Danube trip in the years 1736-1737, the English
educational travelers Jeremiah Milles (1714-1784) and Richard Pococke
(1704-1765) also paid a visit to Carnuntum and mentioned it in their
travelogue "A description of the east and some other countries". Among
other things, also reported numerous remains of walls, grassy mounds of
bricks in the interior, and a larger ruin in the center of the camp.
19th century
As late as 1821, the Prague magazine Hespererus
reported on farmers from Deutsch-Altenburg who were digging up and
breaking out old bricks as a lucrative sideline and selling them "by the
chunk". In the same year, the numismatist and archaeologist Anton von
Steinbüchel (1790-1883) initiated the first targeted excavations, but
this was only an individual undertaking. Interest in further research
into Carnuntum awoke with a report by the art historian Eduard von
Sacken (1825-1883), with which he informed the Imperial and Royal
Central Commission about the discovery of Mithraeum I during blasting
work on the Pfaffenberg. Sacken had the finds recovered with the
greatest possible care and taken to the antique cabinet in Vienna. When
Roman inscriptions were found in the Deutsch-Altenburg quarry in 1852,
the first excavations began, but these were still mainly limited to
collecting ancient finds. The walls of the military baths that were
exposed in the process were then filled in again. In the same year
Sacken reported that now not a single remnant of the wall of the
legionary camp was visible above ground. From 1877, systematic
archaeological investigations began under the ancient historian Otto
Hirschfeld (1843–1922), which initially focused on the legionary camp
and, to a lesser extent, on the canabae legionis and lasted (with brief
interruptions) until the outbreak of the First World War. 4/5 of the
camp could be uncovered. In 1884, under the patronage of Crown Prince
Rudolf von Habsburg, the Carnuntum association was founded with the aim
of promoting the scientific investigation of the local ancient
archaeological sites. In 1885 the monument conservator Alois Hauser
(1841-1896) and in 1908 the archaeologist Maximilian von
Groller-Mildensee (1838-1920) dug in the legionary camp and on the
Pfaffenberg. In 1888 the amphitheater of the camp town (Amphitheater I)
was discovered in a depression next to the legionary camp. It was
uncovered by Hauser by 1896. Archaeological exploration of the Roman
aqueduct on the Sola Field south of the Canabae began in the 1890s.
Between 1885 and 1894 the burial ground on the Amber Road west of the
Groller-Mildensee legionary camp was uncovered. Eugen Bormann entered
the positions of the individual graves on a cadastral map. In August
1894, the building researcher Josef Dell (1859-1945) and Carl Tragau (†
1908) examined Mithraeum III. In the same year the K.K. Archaeological
Institute was launched. From then on, this and the Limes Commission,
which was affiliated with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, were in
charge of researching Carnuntum.
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century,
Groller-Mildensee examined the area south of the theater, whose
buildings were based on the Limes road. The Carnuntinum Museum was
opened in 1904 to present the ever increasing number of finds in Bad
Deutsch-Altenburg. In the subsequent excavation campaigns, the
archaeologist Eduard Novotny (1862-1935) was able to uncover a large
part of the legionary camp until 1914, so that it was possible to
reconstruct its structure and structure. Between 1913 and 1914, the then
director of the Carnuntinum Museum, Josef Bortlik, organized another
large-scale excavation campaign along the street of graves in order to
protect the finds from the last unplundered graves from treasure
diggers. Since the 1950s, land consolidation, the expansion of
infrastructure, large-scale mining, the industrialization of
agriculture, etc. have led to the destruction of large areas of
archaeological finds. All of these circumstances made rescue excavations
necessary, but they were under great time pressure. The last excavations
in the legionary camp were carried out between 1968 and 1977 by the
Austrian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Austrian
Archaeological Institute. They enabled the (still valid) periodization
of the legionary camp and provided essential insights into the
wood-earth camp and the late antique stone camp. The eastern part of the
praetentura (northern part) of the camp has remained largely unexplored
to this day. In 1977, on the eastern outskirts of Petronell-Carnuntum,
the ditch of the cavalry camp was cut during the construction of a
housing estate (the so-called Schneidersiedlung). Archaeological
excavations began in 1978 under the direction of Herma Stiglitz.
However, some sections of the fort were irretrievably lost as a result
of the building over. To save the rest of the fort, the Austrian Federal
Monuments Office placed the fort under monument protection. By 1988, it
was possible to examine the western half of the area in particular,
partly with search cuts, but also on a large scale. The function, the
four construction periods and the dimensions of the cavalry camp could
be determined. In addition to the fortifications, a number of the
interior buildings from the different construction periods were also
examined. After Stiglitz retired in 1989, Manfred Kandler was entrusted
with continuing the excavation work. He also included the southern apron
of the fort in his investigations. Mainly tools, weapon parts as well as
cooking and eating utensils were discovered in the cavalry fort. Among
the most notable finds are the face mask of an equestrian helmet and a
parade helmet used in tournaments. The stone monuments from this
excavation area can be viewed in the lapidarium of the cultural center
in the municipality of Petronell-Carnuntum. The ruins and finds from the
temple area on the Pfaffenberg were documented by rescue excavations by
the University of Vienna between 1970 and 1985 before they were finally
destroyed and thus secured for posterity.
21st century
Until
2004, the Austrian Archaeological Institute was able to examine large
sections of the equestrian fort before the modern development was
completed and save it from final destruction by conducting rescue
excavations. In 2012, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological
Prospection and Virtual Archeology, in cooperation with other partner
organizations, started the "ArchPro Carnuntum" project, which was
commissioned by the state of Lower Austria. Through the systematic use
of non-invasive archaeological prospecting methods (remote sensing and
geophysics), the researchers mapped most of Carnuntum with
high-resolution measurements. Within three years, they were able to
examine an area covering a total of approx. 10 km². A preliminary
overall plan of the ancient remains hidden in the ground was drawn up by
2013 with the help of aerial photographs. The archaeological structures
extend over several square kilometers and show, among other things, a
dense development on the area of the canabae and also structures of
the water supply. With the help of the results of the old excavations
and a re-evaluation of the previous state of research, a true-to-scale
model of Roman Carnuntum was produced. The research in the legionary
camp has come to a complete standstill due to the current negative
attitude of the landowner.
Overview
The development of the two forts and the camp town was
closely related to the constant defensive battles against the Germanic
tribes living on the other side of the Danube, which made it necessary
to permanently station a large number of soldiers. Due to this
circumstance, the border section near Carnuntum repeatedly became the
focus of imperial politics, which can be seen in the frequency of the
presence of important Roman emperors and generals in the city.
1st century BC.
In the 1st 40s B.C. The Boii were subdued by their
eastern neighbors, the Dacians under Burebista, who also burned down
their large oppidum near today's Bratislava. After this defeat, the now
largely deserted Boian territory (deserta Boiorum, roughly what is now
the Vienna Basin and Burgenland) fell to the Noriker. Their settlement
areas were also part of the kingdom of Noricum (regnum Noricum) at the
end of the first century BC around 15 B.C. The kingdom of Noricum was
integrated into the Roman Empire as one of the few new areas of the
empire without a violent conquest.
1st century AD
In the Roman
written sources, Carnuntum was first mentioned in connection with war
events before the Pannonian-Dalmatian Rebellion (bellum dalmaticum), a
revolt of the indigenous tribes against Roman rule of 6-9 AD. According
to the chronicler Velleius Paterculus, a Roman army of around 40,000 men
under their general Tiberius set up a temporary winter camp (castra
hiberna) in order to be able to e.g. to subdue the Marcomanni under
their king Marbod, who north of the Danube u. a. settled in what is now
Bohemia and Moravia. The location of this camp has not yet been located;
either it was near Hainburg an der Donau, on the castle hill of
Bratislava or at the mouth of the Morava. Pliny wrote of the camp being
located in the "Germanic border area"; so Carnuntum did not officially
belong to the Roman Empire at that time.
The consolidation of
Roman rule encountered much greater difficulties in Pannonia than in
neighboring Noricum. Marbod endangered the Roman expansion into Central
Germany, as he had a 70,000-strong army (including 4,000 horsemen)
drilled according to the Roman model. Emperor Augustus therefore
assembled twelve legions (80,000 men) on the Rhine and Danube and placed
them under his stepson Tiberius. He was to cross the Danube at Carnuntum
with six legions and advance further north along the March. At the same
time, the second army group, led by Sentius Saturninus, marched east
from Mogontiacum/Mainz to pinch the Marcomanni. The Pannonian rebellion,
presumably instigated by Marbod, finally thwarted further advances by
Rome into free Germania. Tiberius, who had already reached far north, as
far as what is now the Weinviertel, had to turn back immediately, not
only to put down the uprising, but also to prevent being cut off from
his supplies from Italy. Despite the high number of troops, the
Pannonians could only be subdued after three years. After the loss of
three legions in the Varus Battle, Augustus finally gave up further
conquests in the Germanic tribal areas and fixed the imperial border on
the rivers Rhine and Danube.
By 8 AD at the latest, the region around Carnuntum should have been
incorporated into the Roman Empire. After the death of Augustus, in the
summer of 14 AD, there was unrest in the joint summer camp (castra
aestiva) of the legions (Legio VIIII Hispana, Legio XV Apollinaris and
Legio VIII Augusta) stationed in Pannonia at the time. However, Drusus
the Younger was able to calm down the angry soldiers quickly, after
which they retreated to their winter quarters as ordered. In the year
19, inner-German conflicts prompted Marbod, defeated by Arminius, and
his entourage to ask for asylum in the Roman Empire. He was followed a
little later by his opponents Catualda and the Quaden ruler Vannius
(regnum Vanianum), who were settled on the Leithagebirge. Under Emperor
Nero (54 to 68 AD), the province of Pannonia was formed from northern
Illyria, to which Carnuntum was now added. Initially, Roman troops were
stationed only at particularly vulnerable points on the new border line.
The main defenses in Upper Pannonia were opposite the mouth of the March
and on the border between Vindobona (Vienna) and Brigetio (Komarom). At
no other frontier of the Roman Empire was there such a strong
concentration of troops. According to the historian Tacitus, the reign
of Claudius began the establishment of permanent military camps and
watchtowers along the Danube to secure the new frontier. The oldest
traces of Roman settlements have been proven for the period between 40
and 50 AD (finds from Upper Italian Terra Sigillata), when the Legio XV
was permanently stationed on the Danube in connection with the expulsion
of Vannius and their second camp after Vindobona in Carnuntum on the
Pannonian Limes (corridor on Burgfeld). In this period the old Celtic
oppida were also abandoned; the subdued indigenous population (dedictii)
was settled in the plain around the new legionary camp for better
control. The earliest inscription known from Carnuntum (AD 53 or 54)
reports on construction work in the legionary camp. At the same time, a
settlement (canabae legionis) consisting of irregularly laid out simple
dwellings developed around the camp, leaving a free area for the
assembly of the army. A funerary stele made around the middle of the 1st
century depicts a Roman soldier supervising a Celtic carter. This
suggests that the local population was also increasingly involved in the
numerous construction measures at this time.
Since Augustus's
policy of conquest was rejected by his successors, the Flavian emperors
began to set up a border security organization. Under Vespasian (69-79)
the wood-earth storehouse was replaced by a stone building. The western
flank of Carnuntum was protected by the legionary camp at Vindobona.
Under his successor, Domitian, a fort for a 500-strong cavalry unit was
built about 1.2 kilometers south-west of the camp. It should ensure
greater mobility of troops in border surveillance. In the years 85-86
the Romans suffered a defeat against the Dacians. The fighting
subsequently spread to the region around Carnuntum. Domitian therefore
felt compelled to appear in person in Pannonia in order to coordinate
defensive measures. During a campaign against the Marcomanni and Quadi
in the years 89 and 90, the emperor was probably also in Carnuntum. On
his orders, more troops were transferred to Pannonia to reinforce the
Danube army, for which new forts also had to be built. The cavalry camp
may also have belonged to this. In 97 the war, the so-called Bellum
Germanicum et Sarmaticum, ended with a Roman victory.
2nd century
In 106 or 117 one of the Rhine legions, the Legio XIIII Gemina, was
transferred from Vindobona to Carnuntum by order of Trajan, where it
remained stationed until the end of Roman rule over Upper Pannonia. The
expansion of the legionary camp was completed under Trajan. Between 110
and 120 there were also fundamental innovations in the area of the
cavalry fort. The changes there are also likely to have been related to
a change in crew. After demolishing the old wood-earth fort, the
Thracian cavalry unit set up a stone camp in the same place. Carnuntum
continued to grow steadily over the course of the 2nd century due to
increased immigration, encouraged by the presence of the legion, which
guaranteed maximum security and stable economic growth. An additional
driving force behind the rapid development of the military town was the
extremely lucrative long-distance trade with free Germania.
After the province was divided into Upper Pannonia and Lower Pannonia
under Trajan, Carnuntum became the official seat of the consular
governor (Legatus Augusti per praetore provinciae Pannoniae) between 103
and 107, to which all Upper Pannonia legions were subordinate from then
on. In order to be able to better fend off attacks by the Germans,
outposts were set up north of the Danube, opposite Carnuntum, as part of
an early warning system on the Marchtalstraße in Stampfen and Theben.
The Marcomannic Wars in the 160s and 170s, which were devastating for
the Roman Empire, abruptly ended Carnuntum's steady upward development.
The invasion of 6,000 warriors from a coalition of Lombards, Marcomanni
and Ubians was repelled by the Upper Pannonian governor. In 167,
however, a campaign against some transdanubian Germanic tribes
(Marcomanni, Quadi, Narists and other small peoples) failed. They then
stormed and breached the Limes. Up to 20,000 Roman soldiers and the
governor are said to have died trying to repel them. This disaster was
aggravated by the outbreak of the Antonine plague, brought in by a Roman
army returning from the east, which severely decimated the soldiers and
civilian population along the Limes. The Germanic invaders advanced as
far as Aquileia in northern Italy. However, when they returned to the
Limes with their booty, the Roman forces were already waiting for them
there. After bitter fighting, most of the looted goods were taken from
the invaders and they were pushed back across the Danube. In the course
of the Roman counter-offensive to devastate the Germanic tribal areas
north of the Danube, Emperor Mark Aurel set up his headquarters in
Carnuntum for three years (171-173) and wrote a few chapters of his
self-reflections there before his death in 180. The reliefs of the
Marcus Aurelius Column in Rome show some details of the Carnuntum of
that time. During this campaign, the Romans penetrated far into free
Germania, e.g. Evidence of brick stamps of Legio XIIII found near Staré
Město and Hradischt, 120 km north of Carnuntum. The legionnaires had
probably set up a checkpoint there on the Amber Road.
Surprisingly, archaeological excavations in Carnuntum did not reveal any
greater horizon of destruction for this period of time. The legionary
camp or cavalry fort was also continuously occupied in the second half
of the 2nd century and was by no means destroyed in the fighting, as was
initially assumed. At that time, the cavalry camp served as an advanced
replenishment and supply camp for the front and was additionally
equipped with workshops and warehouses for this purpose. Mark Aurel's
successor, Emperor Commodus (180-192), finally concluded a peace treaty
with the Germans and was probably also in Carnuntum for this purpose.
The peace agreement was followed by a new period of stability and
reconstruction in the Pannonian provinces. On April 9, 193, the most
important historical event for Carnuntum took place. The incumbent Upper
Pannonian governor Septimius Severus (193-211) was proclaimed by the
Danube legions as anti-emperor to Didius Julianus and later confirmed by
the Senate in Rome. He founded the Severan dynasty, which gave the
empire another massive military and political boost.
3rd century
Septimius Severus proved to be a generous patron of Pannonia and raised
the civilian city to the rank of Colonia (Colonia Septimia Aurelia
Antoniniana Karnuntum). It was thus the most important city in Pannonia
superior. The result was another intensive building activity that lasted
for several decades. Under the Severans (193-235) the site reached its
economic/cultural heyday and maximum expansion. In the auxiliary troops
camp, only riders were stationed again.
The last decades of the 3rd century were characterized by internal
unrest, constant defensive struggles against invaders and rapidly
changing rulers on the imperial throne (the so-called imperial crisis of
the 3rd century). However, Carnuntum continued to be an important base
on the middle Danube Limes. In 260, during the reign of Gallienus
(253–268), the Carnuntian troops proclaimed the governor of Pannonia
superior, Regalianus, as anti-emperor; but he was not recognized by the
Senate in Rome. His influence never grew beyond the Limes strip between
Carnuntum and Brigetio. During his brief reign he minted coins in his
own image and that of his wife Sulpicia Dryantilla, some of which have
been found in Carnuntum. Just six months later, both were murdered by
their own soldiers. Towards the end of the 3rd century the cavalry fort
was abandoned, probably as a result of the military reforms carried out
under Gallienus. The legionary riders formerly stationed at the Limes
were brought together to form a powerful cavalry army near Mediolanum
(Milan). In the event of a crisis, it was intended to operate as a rapid
reaction force reporting directly to the emperor. It was a forerunner of
the later mobile comitatenses (mobile field armies) and initially
consisted primarily of Illyrian (Pannonia, Moesia and Dacia) and Moorish
(North Africa) units. The riders of the Carnuntian Legion were probably
also assigned to her. With Diocletian's rise to power in 284, the long
period of instability among the soldier emperors ended. In 288 he stayed
at the Danube Limes and had the fortifications strengthened by building
new camps, small forts and Ländeburgi, and had the old fortifications
modernized. Upper and Lower Pannonia were now split into four
administrative units. In 295 Carnuntum was the starting point of Caesar
Galerius' campaign against the Marcomanni.
4th century
The
political conflicts between his successors after his abdication prompted
Diocletian, who wanted to prevent the collapse of his system of rule, to
convene a meeting of all disputing parties in Carnuntum in 308 in order
to settle the conflicts peacefully and revive the tetrarchy. With this
conference within its walls, Carnuntum once again became the focus of
imperial politics. The city was probably chosen as the venue because of
its location near the border between the western and eastern parts of
the empire and also because of its representative buildings and
well-developed infrastructure for the appropriate accommodation of the
delegates. In this historically significant meeting, the Augusti
Diocletian, Galerius, Licinius and Maximinus Daia succeeded in putting
the distribution of power in the Roman Empire on a new, stable basis
(the so-called fourth tetrarchy). On the occasion of the restoration of
a Mithraic sanctuary (Mithraeum III), the participants donated an altar
that is now kept in the Museum Carnuntinum.
During this time,
however, more and more soldiers were withdrawn from their old garrison
locations on the Limes and assigned to newly formed mobile field armies
(comitatenses) to protect the heartland of the Western Roman Empire. The
stationary border troops (limitanei) of Ufernorikum and Pannonia I were
now under the command of a dux limites. 350 Carnuntum was shaken by a
severe earthquake, which caused considerable damage to the
infrastructure and is archaeologically (especially in the Canabae)
provable by layers of destruction on the large public buildings.
Presumably, a large part of the civilian population migrated as a result
of this catastrophe and because of the onset of a deterioration in the
climate at the end of the 4th century. The progressive impoverishment of
the provincial population and the continuous withdrawal of soldiers also
severely affected trade and money circulation. With the beginning of the
migration of peoples, there were more and more raids and plunderings on
the Limes by nomadic tribes pushing from the east, who in turn had to
flee from the Huns, who were expanding further and further to the west,
and therefore wanted to force their settlement in the Roman Empire.
In 374 Carnuntum was once again the starting point for Valentinian
I's campaign of revenge against the Quadi and Jazygen. He probably also
had the last verifiable modifications made to the legionary camp. Among
other things, a useless sewer in the northern part of the camp was
quickly filled with spolia. On the orders of this ruler, extensive
construction work also took place on the rest of the Danube Limes, which
was intended to modernize the already largely dilapidated fortification
system and thus compensate for the endemic lack of soldiers. A passage
in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus gives an idea of how urgently
the forts on the Limes needed such revitalization measures. Although it
was still of great strategic importance, the emperor found the city to
be a "unkempt, filthy place" and already largely deserted when he
arrived. In the last decades of the 4th century, however, extensive
building activities can still be proven both in the civilian town and in
the legionary camp, which was no longer used exclusively for military
purposes. For the greatly reduced garrison, two small fortifications
(rest forts or burgi) were probably built, as was often observed on the
Danube Limes. Large parts of the former settlement area were abandoned
and only used as a cemetery.
After the catastrophic defeat of the
Eastern Roman army against a barbarian coalition in the Battle of
Adrianople in 378, Hun, Alan and Goth tribes moved unhindered through
the empire and finally had to be recognized by Rome as foederates or
granted them the right to settle in Thrace. By 380 the Ostrogoths and
Alans under Alatheus and Safrac also reached Pannonia and were enlisted
there in the provincial army. In 395 the Pannonian Limes collapsed
across the board; the unfortified civilian settlements were largely
abandoned. The residents who were still living in Carnuntum at that time
either withdrew to the legionary camp, to the Forum thermal baths
(palace ruins) or to areas of the civilian town that were still
inhabitable. Legio XIIII's patrol ships and liburnari were moved to
neighboring Vindobona. In the same year, the Marcomanni, Quaden Goths,
Alans and Vandals invaded Pannonia without encountering any resistance
worth mentioning, but presumably spared the city. In the following year,
396, the Marcomanni were settled at the instigation of the regent in the
west, Stilicho, to defend the Limes between Carnuntum and
Klosterneuburg. These Marcomannic auxiliaries appear in the Notitia
dignitatum under the command of a tribunus gentis Marcomannorum. They
were probably also involved in the last major construction work in the
legionary camp.
5th to 11th centuries
Until the early 5th
century, Western Rome managed with great effort to hold its upper and
middle Danube borders. According to the Notitia Dignitatum, a praefectus
still resided there around the middle of the 5th century, who had a
cohort of the Legio XIIII and some naval soldiers under his command. The
last traces of Roman settlement could be observed in Carnuntum until the
first half of the 5th century. They concentrated in the legionary camp,
where the remaining Roman civilian population had meanwhile withdrawn.
433 AD the Pannonian provinces of Valentinian III. left to the Huns
under Attila to administer. However, the greater Carnuntum area remained
populated throughout the migration period. Two years after Attila's
death, Emperor Avitus tried to bring Pannonia back into the empire, but
failed due to the resistance of the Goths, who now ruled the province.
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the settlement in the
former legionary camp was finally abandoned. Between 546 and 568
Lombards and Avars occupied the country. Remarkably, there is no find
material from the interior of the camp either from the Lombard period or
from the period of Avar rule. In the early 9th century, Carnuntum marked
the northernmost terminus of an Avar khaganate. Carnuntum was last
mentioned in 805 in the Annales regni Francorum. After that it was
forgotten. At the same time as a large early medieval ramparts on the
Kirchenberg near Bad Deutsch-Altenburg existed during the 9th/10th.
Century inside the legionary camp for a short time again a smaller
settlement. Since the Carolingian period, some farming families have
probably settled in the core of the former camp town. Around the turn of
the millennium there was a small village whose name is unknown. The
center of settlement finally shifted eastwards to Hainburg on the Danube
around the middle of the 11th century. The legionary camp and the
civilian settlements were destroyed in the following centuries by
systematic stone robbery.
General
The legionary camp (castra legionis) was on the outskirts
of Petronell, on the area between federal highway 9 and the banks of the
Danube. The construction history of the camp can essentially be narrowed
down to a wood-earth and two stone construction phases. During the
excavations, however, a total of up to eight layers of finds could be
distinguished from one another. The stone fort from the middle imperial
period was built on the same site as the earlier wood-earth store. Its
diamond-like, irregular plan was a result of the topographical features
of the plateau. Ribs of rock in the steep slope of the Danube made it
possible for the camp to be built very close to the banks of the Danube.
From here you had a good view of the Marchfeld. While the camp in nearby
Brigetio had to be relocated somewhat away from the Danube bank in
Hadrianic times due to erosion, the north side of the Carnuntine camp
seems to have remained stable throughout its entire phase of use.
Hollows and depressions appeared in places on the other three sides, to
which the course of the wall had to be adapted. The west side buckled
slightly inwards in the goal area. In contrast, the eastern wall bulged
far outwards and receded sharply inwards in the gate area.
The
camp could accommodate up to 6000 men (miles legionis). Its interior
buildings included the staff quarters (principia), the living quarters
of the camp commander (praetorium), the hospital (valetudinarium), the
camp baths (thermae), barracks (contubernia), workshop buildings
(fabrica) and storage buildings (horrea). Based on the discovery of
countless pieces of broken glass, at least these buildings may have been
equipped with glazed windows. The archaeologists also uncovered a
powerful layer of destruction that could be dated to the end of the 4th
century. After the excavations, it was filled in again because its area
is used for agriculture. Its remains still stand out from its
surroundings as a clearly recognizable plateau with the surrounding
indentations of the fortification ditches. Above ground, only small
remnants of the wall of the defense at the east gate and the foundations
of its southern flank tower, which are heavily overgrown with
vegetation, can be seen.
Wood-soil storage
Little is known of
the early wood-earth camp (period I). Its traces could only be found in
a few places of the fully excavated successor building from the 2nd and
3rd centuries. It was probably built between 40 or 50 AD and measured
195 × 178 meters including the moat. The fortifications consisted of an
inner wall of earth about five meters wide that served as a battlement
and an outer wooden plank wall with beams embedded vertically in the
ground and wooden towers standing on four posts. A double V-shaped ditch
six meters wide ran around the camp. The inner walls were built up with
the excavation of the ditches and served as a battlements. Not much is
known of its interior either. Most of the camp buildings were probably
still built using half-timbering. Since the oldest findings were not
extensively uncovered and the ancient buildings left behind severe
damage, it was impossible to reconstruct coherent floor plans. Traces of
a barracks barracks, about four meters wide and running from north to
south, could only be detected in the northern area. A few traces of
obstruction were also observed in the southern camp area. It is assumed
that by the reign of Vespasian the principia, the praetorium and the
camp baths, which were probably east of the via Praetoria, were already
built in stone.
Steinlager I
From the 1970s, the Stein camp
was gradually converted (period II). These building measures are
confirmed by several building inscriptions uncovered in the center of
the camp. Although it stood in the same place as its predecessor, its
floor plan was slightly shifted to the north-east. Two major
construction periods and several smaller construction phases could be
identified for the Steinlager. The fort measured 207 × 177 meters and
covered an area of approximately 17.5 hectares. At the time of Trajan,
the wall of wood and earth was replaced by a stone wall to the east and
west. Numerous centurion stones were also built into the camp wall.
These were inscribed building blocks, which marked the building lots
assigned to the individual centuries and gave the name of the officer
responsible for it and the legion. The camp was then renovated several
times, but its basic features remained intact until the beginning of the
rule of the Severan imperial dynasty. Around the year 200, extensive
changes were made to the site plan, but these were probably limited to
the praetentura (front). The newly built barracks were no longer based
on the floor plans of the wooden predecessor buildings. Between 260 and
270 the camp was severely damaged by barbarian raids.
Steinlager
II
Under Valentinian I, from 375, significant changes were again made
to the building structure of the legionary fortress, as evidenced by a
late antique building inscription from the western raetentura and the
excavation finds. On the west side of the raetentura, next to the
hospital or prison, a small or residual fort was built after 380, into
which the guard soldiers who remained in the camp withdrew. A similar
weir system (burgus) was probably also built at the end of the Danube.
Furthermore, there was a striking number of spoils in the masonry of
this construction phase. The rest of the camp area was left to the
civilian population. In the eastern praetentura, three- to four-room
dwellings could be erected in dry construction and with hose heaters.
Significant structural changes were also made to some of the tribune
buildings.
Baking ovens, pottery kilns, some building structures
that can probably be interpreted as cisterns, and other findings that
can no longer be interpreted were uncovered throughout the camp. In the
majority of cases, these were probably late antique fixtures. The
excavations in the praetentura (eastern part) also revealed a large
early medieval oven, which was built in the last settlement phase, in
the 9th or 10th century.
The very simply designed new buildings
of the post-military settlement phase, which began at the beginning of
the 5th century, consisted only of wood, earth and clay and were no
longer based on the old building regulations that corresponded to
military requirements. With the departure of the last regular soldiers,
presumably around the middle of the 5th century, the camp finally lost
its original function. In the early Middle Ages, a group of Slavs
settled within its walls. Judging by the pottery finds, its area was
inhabited until the 9th or 10th century. After that it was abandoned and
demolished by stone robbery over the centuries until it almost
completely disappeared.
Rampart and ditch
As already
mentioned, the wall was drawn in a little in the west towards the camp
gate and in the east it swung in wide arches on both sides in front of
the camp gate there. The only straight line was the southern wall
running from the acute-angled southern corner. The course of the north
wall is largely unknown.
In phase 1, the wall was 1.10 to 1.20 meters thick, in phase 2 it was
1.90 to 3.40 meters with much deeper and more massive foundations. The
rising masonry was still up to 1.25 meters high in some places. Its core
consisted of mortared quarry stones, the outer sides were faced with
carefully hewn stone blocks. In phase 2, it was later widened in places
on the outside or completely rebuilt in some places. It was most likely
finished with a battlement at the top. An approx. 25 meter wide strip of
the northern front of the camp slipped into the Danube or subsided. At
the north-east corner there was still a remnant of the wall supported by
a buttress. There the fort wall was two meters wide and abutted directly
on the barracks. The fort was protected on its north, east and west
sides by a 20 meter wide moat and on the south by two moats with
different profiles. The exterior was rather flat, 12.50 meters wide, the
interior narrow with a steep embankment and measured only 5.40 meters.
The width of the berm was 0.90 to 4.50 meters. The inner ditch may have
been filled in again later. The appearance of the defenses in the late
antique building period has not been sufficiently clarified. During this
time, however, the imperial wall on the NE was apparently additionally
strengthened by an extension attached to the outside. The only thing
that is certain is that the double ditch system was still being
maintained at that time, which is indicated by the filling of the outer
ditch with a coin from 310–311, which can be dated to the middle third
of the 4th century.
Intermediate towers
The wall was
reinforced with square intermediate towers set at irregular intervals on
the inside, six of which have been archaeologically proven in the south.
Five are known in the east, but only one has been found in the west. One
of the corner towers was excavated in the southeast. Presumably,
however, there was also such a tower in the south-west corner. Wall
thickness and side length were measured differently in some specimens.
The legionary fortress could be entered through four gates of
different sizes in the north, south, west and east. Three of the four
camp gates were excavated. The east and west gates were built at the
deepest cuts in the terrain of the plateau. All were flanked by two
slightly projecting towers and had double passageways. The facades of
the gates may have been richly decorated with architectural elements.
Description/Condition
Porta praetoria: Nothing remains of the
north gate, as it fell into the Danube due to the centuries-long
undermining of the bank area.
Porta decumana: The two-phase south
gate was eight meters wide, in the middle there was a pillar (spina)
about one meter wide. The eastern, two-story flank tower measured 6.8 ×
6.6 meters. The foundations of the western one were still preserved. The
two passages were each 3.75 meters wide. In phase 2, the gate towers
were slightly enlarged, the support pillar was lengthened to five
meters.
Porta principalis dextra: Probably the main gate of the
legionary camp. It could be well defended by the camp wall projecting
far on both sides. The foundation of the southern flank tower (7 × 9
meters) was uncovered from this 13 meter wide gateway in 1898. He jumped
about 2.80 meters in front of the camp wall. Evidence of a central
pillar showed that the gate could be passed through two passages.
Porta principalis sinistra: Its last remains were destroyed in the early
18th century by road construction and subsequent stone robbery. The
rising masonry consisted of rectangular blocks that were hewn together
and connected by iron brackets cast in lead. One of the blocks had an
oversized phallic symbol carved on the outside to ward off demons. The
façade decoration consisted of, among other things, capitals and
cornices in the Corinthian style. In 1898, only the southern flank tower
of the multi-phase western gate could be located. He measured 8.8 × 7.5
meters and jumped 1.37 meters inwards or 2.50 meters in front of the
camp wall. In 1899 the northern flank tower was discovered. The Phase 1
north tower measured 7.40 × 9 meters in circumference. In phase 2 it was
no longer rectangular, but rounded at the south-west corner. The floors
inside consisted of brick slabs. Large amounts of broken crockery were
found in the corners between the flanking towers and the camp wall.
Although no central pillar could be found, it is believed that the gate
system also had two passages. The total width of the gate was 15.40
meters. A building inscription from the time of Emperor Valentinian I
testifies to the last construction work in the camp, a fragment of which
was found near the gate.
Sally gate: Not far north of the west gate,
excavations uncovered an underground vault with several access shafts in
front of the barracks. Archaeologists initially thought it was a canal.
As you continued to follow its course, you came to a cross passage that
ended immediately behind the foundation of the camp wall. From there a
passage under the wall led to the glacis. It probably served as a kind
of hatch for the crew's failures during sieges. When it was found, the
gate was barricaded with cast iron blocks and spolia. However, the
stones had only been carefully piled up and not mortared together.
Command building
In the center of the camp, south of the via
principalis, was the command or staff building (60 × 90 meters), the
Principia, with the flag sanctuary (aedes) and various administrative
and assembly rooms (officia), which has only been superficially
explored. It was modeled on a forum around a 42 × 38 meter square paved
with sandstone slabs. Around it ran a colonnade (porticus), which was
provided with a gutter for rainwater to run off. In one of the corners
of the yard there was a round brick well and a stone relief depicting an
archer. Numerous chambers could be entered from the colonnade, which
were probably used as administrative rooms and armouries (armamenta) or
similar.
South of it was the 16-meter-wide transverse hall
(basilica), whose facade was set in front of 12 pilasters. What its
southern facade looked like can no longer be reconstructed exactly. It
probably consisted of several arched passageways lined up next to each
other, flanked by columns. The three-quarter columns may once have been
up to 11 meters high and were 1.30 meters apart. The distance between
the two central pillars was 3 meters. Here there was probably also a
slightly higher arch or the main entrance to the transverse hall. It was
exactly on the axis of the courtyard entrance that led out to via
Pricipales. The remains of five specimens of the central pillars that
supported the roof construction were found during the excavations.
The 10 × 10 meter, heated camp sanctuary (sacellum) lay exactly in
the central axis of the basilica. Carnuntum's best-known ancient stone
sculptures were found between the hypocaust pillars. One of the
consecration altars was dedicated to the protective god (Genius) of the
camp. The sculptures mostly represented gods or emperors. Some of the
rooms were also decorated with wall paintings. The excavators were able
to uncover two more rooms to the west and east of the Sacellum. The
eastern one contained the statue of Hercules, believed to have been made
at Virunum. The second room, to the west and slightly lower from the
ground level, was still preserved up to the window attachments. The wall
painting depicted, among other things, a sacrificial servant dressed in
a white tunic and contained an altar for Jupiter and one for the camp
genius. A statue fragment from the 3rd century was also found in the
vestibule of the camp sanctuary, probably depicting a ruling couple.
Maybe Severus Alexander and his mother Julia Mamaea.
Praetorium
The representative 70 × 58 meter residential building (peristyle house)
of the legionary legate (praetorium) adjoined the principia to the
south. Presumably, the high representatives of the empire were also
housed there when they were in the camp. This building too has only been
superficially explored. The rooms are grouped around a 48.70 × 27.60
meter courtyard. The living quarters and a bathing facility were
probably in the east wing. The other rooms probably housed the legate's
offices or representative rooms. No further details could be determined
due to the high degree of destruction of the building.
Tribune
houses
North of the via principalis, near the west gate, were the
three sprawling peristyle houses of the tribunes (staff officers), the
highest-ranking officers in the legion after the camp commander and his
deputy, the praefectus castrorum. This section of the camp area was
called the scamnun tribunorum. He has been little examined. Possibly
there were three more such officers' quarters there. The buildings were
built like the praetorium but slightly smaller in size (40 × 40 meters,
about 1200-1300 square meters). The courtyards were paved with stone
slabs. One of them was covered with a 1.5 meter layer of mortar in late
antiquity. The buildings were used until the 5th century and have been
modified several times since then. Apparently, they were all similarly
equipped (façade decorations, mosaic floors, marble slabs, wall
paintings, bathrooms, etc.). One of the most beautiful ancient
sculptures of Carnuntum was discovered in one of these houses in 1886,
the marble figure of the so-called dancing Maenad, probably an import
from Italy in the 2nd century. The tribune houses each had their own
well, up to 6 m deep. Between two of the officers' houses was a gently
sloping brick-concrete pavement. Along its longitudinal axis, three
cisterns with beveled edges caught the rainwater running down from the
roofs.
House S directly on the western wall reached up to the street front.
It went through four construction periods and had a three-nave columned
hall and a bathing facility instead of an inner courtyard. The portico
was divided into small chambers with half-timbered walls in the late 4th
century. The two eastern houses, R and T, were set back a little to the
north and shielded from traffic by a series of tabernae chambers. In the
late 4th century, House T was demolished and never rebuilt.
Barracks
The camp had a total of 30 double barracks for accommodating
its teams, each of which could accommodate 160-220 soldiers. The
barracks of the first cohort were lined up to the right and left of the
Principia, the other cohorts were quartered at the front (praetentura)
of the camp on the Danube bank and at its rear (raetendura). Some of the
barracks on the north wall had already slipped into the Danube. The
mid-imperial period crew quarters (period 2) consisted of double
barracks that were built together with their rear walls. They offered
space for five or six parlor communities (contubernia, eight men each)
of the common legionnaires, the milites gregarii. The living quarters
consisted of a 13.50 square meter bedroom (papilio) and an anteroom with
7.50 square meters (arma). Simple hearths (domed ovens) were used for
cooking and heating. On the street front of the building was a covered
walkway, two meters wide, standing on wooden posts. Between the
buildings there was a five meter wide courtyard with a gravel surface.
The barracks of the first cohort were 6 meters wide on the east; further
west, because of the triple room division, 8 meters. They covered an
area of 120 × 100 meters. On the head sides there were larger
buildings, consisting of five to six rooms, which served as quarters for
the centurions. The centurion houses of the barracks of the first cohort
were equipped with twice as many rooms. The special forces of the legion
(immunes) were probably quartered in the rooms at the opposite end of
the barrack blocks. During excavations in 1885, a 1.80 × 2.50 meter
cellar with a staircase was discovered under one of the barracks.
In the eastern part of the praetentura, the barracks were renovated
as part of the last major construction work in the camp. The external
appearance of the barracks remained largely unchanged. The structural
changes affected only the interior structure. The division of the
contubernia into an accommodation area and an antechamber was abandoned.
Instead, three rooms were created by inserting approximately 1.20 m wide
corridors in the anterooms. The area was used as a location for barracks
until the early 4th century. At the end of the 4th century, some of them
were demolished and replaced by three- to four-room houses with wall and
floor heating, which were no longer based on the old floor plans.
Camp hospital and animal hospital
The multi-phase, 83.50 × 79.50
meter large military hospital (valetudinarium) was located west of the
praetorium and was by far the largest building within the legionary
fort. Three rows of chambers were arranged around the inner courtyard,
which served as sick rooms, bathrooms, toilets, etc. It could be entered
via a staircase with heavily worn steps. The rows of chambers were
separated from each other by corridors 3.30 to 4.50 meters wide. In
addition, short transverse corridors in between ensure sufficient
ventilation and lighting of the individual rooms. Some of the sick rooms
were heated. The hospital kitchen was in the east wing. In the center of
the building stood a small sanctuary, presumably for the healing gods
Hygieia or Aesculapius, donated by the capsarii (medics) of Legio XIIII,
and in the center of its west front was a podium with a staircase.
Column fragments and richly articulated cornice pieces testify to the
elaborately designed facade of the building.
The rooms of a 56 ×
27 meter building to the west of the hospital were arranged around a 39
× 19 meter courtyard. Perhaps the animal hospital (veterinarium) was
housed there.
camp tavern
In the northern part of the camp, the excavators came
across a building whose only room was paved with bricks. The room was
slightly lower than street level and could be entered from the south via
two steps. The east wall was still preserved in several layers of stone
and had a small, vaulted opening in the middle, in front of which a
stone slab was embedded in the floor. The passage led to a basement one
meter below, the floor of which was made of rammed earth. Large
quantities of wall painting fragments and fragments of drinking vessels
were found in the rubble of the main room. South of the opening were
four square bases. Two of them still had consecration altars for
Liber/Libera and Mercury/Fortuna. They were once donated by two freed
Greeks, Dionysius and Archelaus. Both were assistants (subadiuuam) to
the senior centurion in the camp (primus pilus), who was also in charge
of the industrial operations of the fort. Two dice made of bone were
also found in the rubble. The excavators therefore interpreted the
building as a camp tavern. The opening probably served as a hatch
through which full wine jugs got from the cellar into the taproom.
functional buildings
The camp also had some functional buildings
east of the praetorium with farm buildings such as food and weapon
magazines (horreum, armamentaria) and workshops (fabrica). Two
multi-phase courtyard buildings right next to the praetorium have been
identified as workshops.
workshops
The western one, Building
C, with 65.70 × 56.20 meters probably served as a kind of building yard
and also for storing and repairing weapons of all kinds and their
accessories. Among other things, 54 slingshots and uninscribed
consecration altars were discovered there. The pillars of the gateway
were badly worn down by cart wheels. Large stacks of roof tiles, a
wicker basket filled with hardened mortar and loose heaps of sand for
building projects were also found here.
In the eastern building
D, with a floor plan of 66.30 × 49 meters, mainly metals and bone were
processed. There were probably numerous other such workshops in the
tabernae along the main streets of the camp. The grain stores and
weapons of the late antique garrison (5th century) were probably housed
in a massively built warehouse on the western wall. Certainly there was
also a separate bath building (therme or balineum), which was probably
located between the barracks in the northern part of the area.
A considerable number of weapon fragments were uncovered during
excavations in four chambers of a warehouse, which was probably under
the command of the armorer of the fort (custos armorum). It was a well
stocked assortment
Shield Bosses and Arrowheads (Chamber 1),
Lance
Tips (Chamber 2),
rail armor (lorica segmentata) and helmets (chamber
3) and
Scale armor (lorica squamata) (chamber 4).
The post
impressions of the wooden shelves on which the tanks had been stored had
been preserved in the floor of the latter. Most of these weapons had
been smashed or broken in ancient times. In addition to the usual team
helmets, the remains of cavalry helmets richly decorated with gold,
silver or bronze were also found there. In one of the chambers, in a
corner, the remains of a larger stock of leather were found, probably
cowhide, some of which had been dyed dull pink or cobalt blue. The
armory also had a heated administrative or lounge room, lit with a
coupled window with a stone pillar in the center. It was the only
surviving window found in the camp. All chambers were plastered, in the
plaster fragments scratched numbers or figures could be seen.
Tank sheds were also unearthed in other areas of the camp. In some cases
they were agglomerated into large lumps of conglomerate when they were
found. Remains of the leather or linen undergarment could still be found
on some of them. Artillery ammunition such as fist- or head-sized
slingshots made of stone or clay could be salvaged from several places
in the camp (north bastion at the east gate). One of these depots
contained up to 34 specimens. Some were provided with a plug hole. The
slingshots at the east gate had been hand-formed into egg-sized pieces,
flattened on two sides, drilled with two holes, and then fired. Iron
snares consisting of four spikes forged together were found several
times outside or inside the camp (see amphitheater).
Camp bakery with pantry
This functional building (clibanae) was
directly connected to the armory. Its carefully crafted, extraordinarily
wide walls were preserved two meters high when they were uncovered. A
passage led from the bakery to the grain store, which still contained
the remains of barley, peas and millet. The bakery was equipped with six
vaulted ovens heated with charcoal. The rods of a broom still lay in
one. Two stone troughs, a hand mill and the iron bands surrounding a
baking trough, probably a hollowed-out tree trunk, were found from the
inventory.
Granary
The sprawling warehouse/horreum (Building
E) stood near the east gate, measured 86 × 38.50 meters and had a long
rectangular plan. Its walls were up to 1 meter wide.
Shield
factory
In contrast to the early and middle imperial period, the camp
area was used more for workshops in the first half of the 4th century,
which were built especially along the south-eastern battlement retaining
wall, directly on the via sagularis. Among other things, these
facilities consisted of at least eight round pools made of air-dried
clay bricks and sealed with crushed brick mortar, which were lined up
closely together and each had a roof. They were uncovered between 1968
and 1977 and may only have been in use for a short time - around the
first half of the 4th century. They were later filled up again. Two
comparable, better-preserved basins on the southern front of the camp
had already come to light during the old excavations. They were probably
used to tan leather, which was needed as a covering for a fabricae
scutariae (shield factory) mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum for
Carnuntum. It was probably set up in Carnuntum from the time of
Diocletian (284–305 AD) in order to ensure the central need for such
protective equipment for the province of Pannonia. Carnuntum is one of
the few places where archaeological evidence of such facilities could be
found. Since the need for leather must have increased enormously due to
the establishment of the shield factory in the Tetrarchic period, one
was dependent on further production facilities for the required raw
materials. It was probably northeast of the praetorium. The buildings
there were interpreted by the first excavators as storage and workshop
buildings, mainly because of their floor plans. The material waste
discovered there also supported this assumption. In Building D in
particular, which was characterized by numerous small rooms grouped
around a large courtyard with a central water basin, evidence of
workshops was found during the first excavations. In two rooms to the
north, numerous scraps of bronze sheet, rivets and pieces of wire and
over a hundred smaller and larger pieces of sawed deer antlers were
unearthed.
Camp prison
Four sacramental altars were found in a
building south-east of the hospital, and a fifth lay smashed on the
ground. Two were dedicated to Mercury and Nemesis. The latter had been
donated by the prison administrator Caius Pupilius Censorinus (ex
optione custodiarium, clavicularii) in the early 3rd century. The
building was therefore interpreted by the excavators as a prison (carcer
castrorum). Its screed floors had been renewed twice over the centuries.
The room served as the manager's office and a lounge for the guards. The
dungeon could be entered through a narrow door.
Warehouse streets
The camp's axial street system was laid out in such a way that the main
streets led directly to the most important buildings (e.g. principia,
praetorium, camp thermal baths). The starting points for the two main
roads in the camp were the gates on Limesstrasse and Bernsteinstrasse.
The via principalis formed the cardo and the via praetoria, which was
called decumana at the back, the decumanus. The via principalis, running
from northeast to southwest and 334 meters long, roughly below today's
federal highway 9, ran through the narrow side of the camp. Judging by
the remains of the foundations on the side of the road, it was
accompanied by colonnades on both sides. It is striking that it deviates
from the east-west direction by about 36 degrees to the northeast. This
deviation was not caused by the topographical conditions, but is
probably a result of the orientation of the road to the point at which
the sun rose on the day of the summer solstice. The second main street
of the camp, the via decumana, running from north to south, was
interrupted by two buildings (principa and praetorium). The via
vicinariae laid out in the southern section of the camp ran parallel to
the via principalis. Along the camp walls there was also a rampart road,
the via sagularis, which established a connection to all sections of the
camp and enabled the crew to quickly reach the battlements in the event
of an alarm. At the same time, it served as a buffer zone against
projectiles fired by besiegers. In many places, the excavators found
cauldron-shaped indentations in the streets, which probably served as
camouflaged pitfalls to stop attackers who had entered the camp. Most of
the camp's streets were lined with bricked-in sewers. The main sewer
came out on the east side of the fort and had a barrier to prevent the
faeces from backing up during high water.
The camp was supplied with fresh water from wells, cisterns and draw wells on the main roads. But traces of underground water pipes and canal systems (cloaca) could also be found on the camp site. Pipes made of wood or lead were laid at the individual extraction points. The remains of what appeared to be a technically very sophisticated water supply and disposal system were found on the praetorium, on the principia and the tribune houses. The remains of the main sewers could be observed especially at the camp gates. The main canal began at the south gate and ran around the entire camp area in two separate strands under Wallstrasse. It was accessible through several manholes. The main entrance was also provided with a stone staircase and a working platform. It drained directly into the Danube, as was established in 1899. Numerous secondary canals that ran under the camp alleys and received the sewage from the house canals and rivulets also flowed into the main canal. Remarkably, one of them had been reinforced with thick iron plates on all sides in one section.
This fort is one of the best researched camps on the Noric-Pannonian
Limes. The auxiliary troops camp on the western edge of the camp town
could accommodate a 500-strong cavalry unit (ala quinquenaria). The
pre-Roman period of the fort area is documented by a few settlement pits
that may have been created around the birth of Christ. Some tombs, also
located under the fort, mark the oldest Roman horizon. This includes a
tombstone for an unknown member of the legio XV Apollinaris, which was
destroyed during the construction of the first camp. He stood on the
extensive burial ground that ran along the Limes road leading to the
legionary camp for several kilometers. A cupola furnace with a
rectangular charging pit in the fort area also dates from the time of
its origin. Perhaps it served as an oven for the soldiers involved in
the construction. A total of four construction phases could be
distinguished during the excavations. The entire fort was not destroyed
during the construction of the housing estate. In the area of the fort
baths and in two sections of the southern and eastern wall, modern
construction could be prevented.
Castle I
The early camp was
built almost entirely of wood. The front was aimed at the legionary camp
northeast of it. Three sides of the fort could be examined by
excavations. The course of the rest of the fort wall is only known from
aerial photographs. The full extent of the fort was 178 × 225 meters,
covering a total area of around four hectares.
Defense: The
fortification consisted of a double ditch. His excavated material was
piled up to form an earth wall, on the crown of which there was probably
a wooden palisade as a parapet. The gate, intermediate and corner
towers, which are almost certainly made of wood, have not yet been
archaeologically proven.
Interior buildings: The only known
interior buildings are the crew barracks lined up at the back
(raetendura) of the camp, the living quarters of the camp commandant
(praetorium) and some sections of the command building (principia). At
the rear of the courtyard in the principia, which was probably paved
with stone slabs, five adjacent rooms were arranged, the middle one
probably serving as a flag sanctuary (aedes). A few iron spear shoes for
the military standards (signum, vexilla) that had once been placed there
were still in the ground. A shallow pit, presumably for storing the
troop cash register, was also preserved.
Water supply/sewerage:
The water supply for the fort crew was probably provided by wells. The
horses may have been watered outside the camp. Some cisterns were also
built to collect rainwater. One of them was found in the yard of the
commander's house. The rainwater running off the roofs of the buildings
was drained away in flat, trough-shaped channels that ran 0.40 meters
from the house walls. More such gutters were located at the back of the
barracks. The sewage then flowed into the main sewer under the via
sagularis (wall road). It led to the outside through one of the camp
gates and probably consisted of a simple wooden gutter, which was also
bordered by architectural pieces in secondary use.
Castle II
The camp had the shape of a playing card and was rotated by about 90°
when it was rebuilt. The praetorial front was now oriented towards the
bank of the Danube and aligned in the same way as the legionary camp.
The storage area was reduced to 178 × 205 meters (3.65 hectares).
Defense: The stone wall was 0.90 meters wide, reinforced with
rectangular intermediate and corner towers and also surrounded by a
moat. Of the four trapezoidal corner towers, only the one in the
southeast corner could be examined. Corner and intermediate towers did
not protrude beyond the line of the wall. Only the rectangular flanking
towers of the camp gates clearly set themselves apart from the fence.
The crest of the wall could be walked on a battlements heaped up from
earth. The south-east corner was fortified with wooden planks resting on
pillars attached to the fort wall.
Interior buildings: Barracks,
the hospital, the officers' residences and the command building are
known as interior buildings. Even in this period they were still made
entirely of wood. However, partially air-dried clay bricks were also
used as building material. Some of the buildings had pillar structures
(portikus) in front of them. Their wooden supports rested on foundations
made of quarry stone. The crew barracks had a long rectangular floor
plan and consisted of two adjacent rows of rooms. Two rooms formed the
accommodation for a parlor community (contubernia). In some of the
barracks, the front rooms were used as horse stables and offered space
for a maximum of three mounts. Presumably part of the cavalry unit had
to fulfill the task of a rapid reaction force, for which they had to be
available to the soldiers as quickly as possible.
Therme: The
bath on the western front of the fort was the only building built
entirely of quarry stone masonry. The camp bath was equipped with a cold
water basin, heated rooms and two hot water tubs.
Water
supply/sewerage: The water used to clean the bathrooms was channeled
through a drainage hole into one of the numerous channels that were used
to transport the waste water to the outside. They flowed into the main
canal running along the western front of the fort. The water needed for
the bath came from a higher cistern, of which only the substructure was
preserved. It was on the south side of the building next to the heating
system (praefurnium). Rainwater was stored in it, but it may also have
been supplied from a well that has not yet been found. Carefully laid
canals were built in the middle of the main streets for the disposal of
sewage. At the top they were obviously covered with wooden boards. One
of these drainage channels had its exit at the southern fort gate and
flushed a latrine, which was housed in the south-eastern corner tower in
a long rectangular building. Before reaching the north-east corner of
the camp, he picked up another channel coming from the north gate of the
fort and then left the camp area under the wall. The faeces from the
latrine were disposed of in a septic tank, for the drainage of which a
drainage channel had broken through the fort wall, which drained the
sewage into the camp ditch.
Castle III
The third construction
period began in the 1960s and lasted until the end. During this time the
fort was used as a supply depot. The numerous structural changes can be
broken down into at least five sub-phases according to the previous
analyses.
The crew barracks in the northern part of the fort were
preserved and continued to be used as such. Some of the horse stables
were also converted into living quarters. All buildings in the center of
the camp were demolished and replaced by new buildings. Some of the
barracks head buildings in this area were now made of stone, including
the commander's house. The workshops mainly produced pottery products.
Some forge furnaces indicate the processing of iron. They were supplied
with fresh water through wooden pipes (drawbar lines). Plants for metal
processing were also discovered in the area to the east of the
principia. To the south and north of this there are traces of wooden
storage buildings (horrea), in which food and animal feed were probably
stored. Two fountains can also be assigned to this period. In one, the
remains of the well formwork, which was composed of wooden barrels
inserted into one another, were still preserved. They were probably made
of fir wood, which was mainly used to make wine barrels. After the well
was abandoned, it was used as a latrine.
Castle IV
In the
period around 200 AD, the last major conversions took place in the camp,
as it was now used exclusively as a cavalry camp. It is no longer
possible to say whether the fort was still occupied by the military from
the middle of the 3rd century. When a buried well was found in the
courtyard of the Praetorium, coins from the time of the emperors
Aurelian (AD 270-275) and Probus (AD 276-282) were found in the filling.
Until the first half of the 18th century some parts of the enclosing
wall, the bath and the command building should have been visible. They
then fell victim to stone robbery.
Interior: The principia was rebuilt in stone. The rooms surrounded a
rectangular courtyard bordered on three sides by a covered open
corridor. Administrative offices were located on the narrow sides, and a
transverse hall (basilica) was attached on the side opposite the
entrance. Rooms on the south side opened into these, in the middle of
which was the flag sanctuary. New barracks were built in the northern
half of the fort, filling the entire area between via sagularis and via
principalis. From them only the foundations remained. Urine pits prove
that some of them were also used again for horse stables. Between the
barracks there were still well-preserved paved courtyards, for which
spoils were also used.
Therme: The fort baths were also rebuilt
again. The individual rooms have been reorganized. The exterior of the
building was also changed. The cold water bath was moved to an apse on
the south side next to the heating system. As a result, water could be
discharged from the cistern into the bathing pool via a shorter route.
The walls of the fort's bath probably stood upright until the middle of
the 4th century. Inside, loose earth was found on the floors, which had
probably been blown in through the window openings. The roof later
collapsed. The walls then collapsed onto the rubble of the roof tiles
during the earthquake that can be assumed to be around the middle of the
4th century. Even the up to 40 cm thick terrazzo floors burst and fell
into the cavities of the underfloor heating underneath.
Water
supply/sewerage: A cut brick drinking water pipe running north of the
camp could have been supplemented further west by a basin or a cistern.
The water was probably lifted into a higher basin by means of a scoop,
where it flowed through distribution pipes (made of wood?). The wooden
pipes were connected to each other with iron drawbar joints at five
Roman feet (150 cm) intervals. The outer diameter could no longer be
determined, nor whether the tree trunks were completely unprocessed. The
pipes led the water to other cisterns or consumers. The dirty water was
channeled through a lead pipe in the north wall into a north-bound
canal, which left the bath under the north wall and then emptied into
the collection canal on the western via sagularis. In the middle of the
barracks courtyard ran a narrow channel for the drainage of the waste
water, which first flowed into the via principalis and from there was
disposed of outside through the camp gate.
Garrison
At the
time of their existence, the Carnuntian forts were occupied by several
legions and auxiliary units of the Pannonian provincial army (exercitus
Pannoniae). However, not all of them have epigraphic or archaeological
evidence of a longer presence in Carnuntum. So it is possible that the
Legio X Gemina was briefly replaced by the Legio VII Gemina around 69
AD. The Legio XXII Primigenia could also have stayed there in the late
1st century. Grave inscriptions from members of various auxiliary units
suggest deployments or short stays in or near Carnuntum. For the battles
in the year of the Four Emperors, units of Vespasian's Orient Army were
also relocated to Pannonia to protect the Danube Limes, including the
cohors II Italica from Syria, which was probably based in Carnuntum
between 69/70. The epitaph of a tuba player (tubicen) of the cohors I
Montanorum from Carnuntum indicates a presence of this troupe in the
middle of the 1st century. The cohors I Alpinorum could also have
reached Carnuntum in the course of the Pannonian uprising as support for
the Legio XV. The Spanish ala I Hispanorum Aravacorum had been defending
against the Germanic Quadi in Pannonia since pre-Flavian times, where
they had set up quarters in the Arrabona fort. A vexillation of this
unit probably stood in Carnuntum at that time. Members of the cohors
XVIII Voluntariorum are said to have stayed in Carnuntum in addition to
Cirpi in the first half of the 2nd century. The partially mounted cohors
I Ulpia Pannoniorum could also have been in the Solva fort and in
Carnuntum under Trajan around 123.
The following units are
assigned as crews for the legionary camp and the cavalry fort:
1st to 2nd century AD (40-50-117/118 AD)
Legio XV Apollinaris (the
Fifteenth Legion of Apollo)
The Legion was raised by Gaius Iulius
Caesar during the Gallic Wars. From 16 to 8 B.C. It was used in the
Pannonian-Dalmatian wars and was also involved in the suppression of the
Pannonian uprising. A grave inscription is considered an indication that
one of her vexillations was stationed, at least for a short time, in
Vindobona (Vienna).
The legion was transferred to Carnuntum in 50 AD
at the earliest and set up the early wood-earth camp there. Their
presence is evidenced by 120 tombstones found there. Accordingly, their
relatives mostly came from Northern Italy, Gaul and Greece. Many of
their brick stamps could be found not only in Carnuntum, but also in the
neighboring forts (e.g. Vindobona, Brigetio) and even north of the
Danube. A Victoria altar donated by the soldier Valerius bore the oldest
known inscription of the temple area on Pfaffenberg. A Mithra altar
donated by one of their centurions is the earliest evidence of this cult
at the Danube Limes.
In 62/63 it was replaced by the Legio X and
sent to Armenia and later to Egypt for a campaign against the Parthians.
During the Jewish War, she took part in the siege of Jerusalem under
Titus. Between 70/71 she returned to Carnuntum.
Their losses were
mainly replaced with recruits from Syrian cities, as the inscriptions on
some tombstones from Carnuntum suggest (Berytus, Antioch on Orontes,
Cyhrrus, Chalcis, Hierapolis). The legion replaced the original wood and
earth camp with a stone structure in AD 73. Their soldiers also took
part in the construction of the cavalry fort. The legion was then used
in the Danube campaigns of Domitian (89-92) and Trajan's Dacian wars.
114 they are said to have been assigned first to Trajan's Parthian
campaign and then placed in the camp of Satala as an occupying force.
Their traces are lost there in the early 5th century. However, more
recent research on the brick stamps suggests that they were finally
withdrawn from Carnuntum later under Hadrian - in the years 118/119.
1st century AD (63–68)
Legio X Gemina pia fidelis (the tenth twin
legion, the dutiful and loyal)
It was first mentioned in 58 BC.
Mentioned in the Gallic Wars as Caesar's elite legion. Around the year
63 AD she was assigned to Carnuntum to temporarily replace Legio XV
there. After numerous operations in the Rhine provinces, Legion 103
returned to Pannonia and moved into the camp of Aquincum (Budapest). 114
she was transferred to Vindobona. In 193 the legion declared itself for
Septimius Severus. Some members of this unit were later accepted into
the Imperial Guard. The Legion stood in Vindobona until its dissolution
in the 5th century.
2nd to 5th centuries AD (114 – 430?)
Legio XIIII Gemina Martia
victrix (the fourteenth twin legion of Mars, the victorious), cohortis
quintae (the fifth cohort)
The Legion may have been founded as
early as 57 BC. erected by Iulius Caesar in northern Italy. In 114 AD it
was moved to Carnuntum to replace Legio XV there. It stood there for
more than three hundred years, although sections of it were also
deployed elsewhere. A vexillation moved to Rome with Septimius Severus'
army in 193 to assist him in asserting his claim to the imperial throne.
She later took part in Severus' Parthian campaign[74], which ended in
198 with the capture of the capital Ctesiphon, and returned to the
Danube frontier in 202. In 260, she joined the revolt of the usurper
Regalianus. In the 4th century it was one of the Limitanei, now also had
Liburnarians (naval soldiers) of the Danube fleet in its ranks and was
under the command of the Dux Pannoniae Primae et Norici Ripensis.
Despite the lack of literary sources, it is likely that the legion also
took part in Valentinian I's campaign against Quaden and Jazygen in the
late 4th century. When the Western Roman magister militum Flavius
Felix under Valentinian III. 427 AD fought the Huns, it was probably
also used. It seems to have held its position until the dissolution of
the Danube border. According to the Notitia dignitatum, only their fifth
cohort was left in late antique Carnunto, which was supposed to secure
the upper section (partis superior) of the Noric-Pannonian Limes.
Carnuntum was probably the seat of the legionary and naval prefect until
around 430. Nothing is known about her further fate, she may have been
taken over by the Eastern Roman army.
4th century AD
Foederati
(Allies)
Ceramic finds of so-called foederate or Hun period goods
from the barracks of construction period V indicate that in the late 4th
century barbarian mercenaries under Roman command also garrisoned the
legionary camp. Perhaps they were members of the Gothic-Alanic group
under Alatheus and Saphrax, to whom Gratian had to grant the right to
settle in the Roman Empire in 379 (after their defeat at the Battle of
Adrianople).
5th century AD
Legionis quartae decimae geminae
milites liburnari (Marines of the Fourteenth Legion), Classis Histricae
(the Danube Fleet)
The presence of naval soldiers (liburnari) can
also be assumed in Carnuntum due to its strategically important location
on the Danube. The tombstone of a certain Augustiana Cassia Marcia is
kept in the Carnuntinum Museum. Her husband, Marcus Antonius Basilides,
was frumentarius (paymaster) of the Xth Legion and as such assigned to
the classis Histricae. For late antiquity, in addition to a prefect of a
Danube flotilla, marines of the Legio XIIII, under the command of the
Dux Pannoniae Primae et Norici Ripensis, are also listed in the Notitia
dignitatum. The classis Histricae was transferred from Carnuntum to
Vindobona in the 4th century. Where the naval port of Carnuntum was
located (perhaps north of the Pfaffenberg or on the east side of
Petronell) can no longer be determined, since the course of the Danube
has changed several times since antiquity.
1st century AD (80–90 AD)
Ala I Tungrorum Frontoniana (the first
Tungrian cavalry squadron of the Fronto)
The troops originally came
from the Lower Rhine and were transferred from Dalmatia to Aquincum
around 73, where they set up their first camp in Pannonia. In 80 she was
stationed in Carnuntum, where she built the equestrian fort I. After ten
years she moved to Lower Pannonia and participated in the construction
of the Campona Castle. Perhaps they were mainly used for construction
projects, as they only stayed briefly in their respective garrison
types. Their stay in Carnuntum is documented by a tombstone and a golden
clasp with the inscription "felices Tun(gri)". Indigenous Boii were also
recruited as new recruits during this period, as the epitaph and two
military diplomas from the year 114 suggest.
1st century AD
Ala I Hispanorum Aravacorum (the first Arevacian
Hispanic cavalry regiment)
This approximately 500-strong unit,
originally from Hispania (Moncloa-Aravaca is today a district of
Madrid), has always been in the Upper Pannonian border area since
pre-Flavian times.[80] Their first Pannonian bases were probably
Carnuntum and then Arrabona (Győr). A grave inscription of one of their
soldiers came to light at both fort locations. After the end of the
Marcomannic Wars, the cavalry troop could have provided the first
garrison in Iža-Leányvár Castle.
1st to 2nd century AD (85 to
101/102)
Ala I Pannoniorum Tampiana milliaria victrix (Tampius' first
Pannonian cavalry squadron, 1000 strong, the victorious one)
This
unit was probably recruited under Augustus from members of the Pannonian
tribes. The name Tampiana was probably originally derived from one of
their commanders. Around 85 it was moved from Britain to Dacia and then
back to Pannonia on the occasion of the Batavian uprising in 70/71. In
89 it was in Carnuntum, from where it was used against the Marcomanni
and Quadi. At the beginning of the 2nd century it was moved back to
Britain. The presence of the Pannonians is only known from grave
inscriptions.
2nd century AD (102 to 118/119)
Ala III Augusta
Thracum (the third Augustan horse archers of the Thracians)
This
cavalry force was transferred from Syria to Pannonia in 101. They
probably moved into their first camp in this province in Carnuntum.
Between 118 and 119 they withdrew again and built Almásfüzitő Castle
near Brigetio, where they were stationed until late antiquity. Their
stay is documented by the tombstone of Ulpius Prosostus, who died there
at the age of 30.
2nd century
Cohors I Ulpia Pannoniorum
milliaria equitata civium Romanorum (the first partially mounted double
cohort of the Pannonians, Roman citizens)
The approximately
1,000-strong unit took part in the Dacian wars of Emperor Trajan and was
awarded Roman citizenship there. Following this, the troops were first
possibly transferred to Carnuntum and around 118 to Esztergom Castle.
2nd to 3rd centuries AD
Ala I Thracum Victrix (the first squadron
of Thracian cavalry, the victorious)
The troops were transferred to
Carnuntum between 118 and 119 and built the cavalry fort II. The
Thracians were stationed there until the fort was abandoned in the
second half of the 3rd century. Their presence is attested by a military
diploma of 126 and some petroleum brick stamps. Some tombstones from
Mattersdorf and Mannersdorf/Leithagebirge suggest that their veterans
Ulpius Titius and Titus Claudius Vanamiu[…] were Celtic Boii and had
settled in the Carnuntum region after their release from military
service.
Overview
The civil Carnuntum extended over today's municipal areas
of Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. A particular stroke of
luck in contrast to most other Roman sites in Austria is that, apart
from a brief period in the early Middle Ages, it was not built over
again in the centuries that followed. The settlement area consisted of
the military town and the civilian town. The nucleus of urban
development was the area around the legionary camp. The military
settlement stretched across Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad
Deutsch-Altenburg. It was inhabited from around the turn of the century
until the end of Roman rule in the 5th century.
In the immediate
vicinity of the legionary camp (intra leugam; within a Gallic leuga,
corresponding to 2.2 km), a multi-phase camp town (Canabae legionis
illius) developed in the second half of the 1st century. At the latest
since the 2nd century it had an urban character. Intra leugnam referred
to a strategic protection zone, the glacis of the camp, which had a
special constitutional and religious status. Mainly business people,
traders and craftsmen and the relatives of the soldiers
(canabenses/canabarii) lived there. But also active soldiers, such as
specialists, had their quarters there. It served primarily to supply the
garrison with everyday goods and was administratively subordinate to the
camp commandant. The living quarters were kept simple, the streets
relatively narrow. Mainly people from the lower classes lived within the
Leuga. It extended from the cavalry camp on the outskirts of Petronell
to the western edge of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. South of the B9 federal
road, it reached the Vienna–Wolfsthal railway line and 100 meters west
of the legionary camp. Your area had a length of 2.3 kilometers, the
width varied between 500 and 1000 meters. From the beginning to the
middle of the 3rd century, its area covered 120 hectares, which was
significantly larger than that of the civilian city. The establishment
of the seat of the governor under Emperor Traian (98–117 AD) led to
major interventions in the settlement structure of the camp suburb.
Thanks to the most recent ground radar measurements, it was possible to
document that the quarters of the governor's guard overlapped the grave
street, one of the main arterial roads in the canabae. With the
construction of the castra singularis, this main road had to be
relocated. Since then, traffic has probably been diverted past the
western front of the guard barracks in the direction of Limesstraße.
Thanks to the prospecting results, the development of the suburbs to
the west and south of the legionary fort is well known. The canabae was
built up increasingly densely from the outskirts of the settlement
towards the legionary camp, which can also be seen in the change in the
building forms. In the outskirts there were mainly simple strip houses,
long rectangular residential and commercial buildings with the narrow
side facing the street and a continuous roof construction. Around the
legionary camp there were somewhat more complex, urban-style houses that
were probably very similar to those in the civilian town. The most
densely built-up areas were around the legionary camp and the
amphitheater. The first houses were along Limesstrasse, Gräberstrasse
and the road to Kastell Gerulata. To the east of the camp was
Amphitheater I, to the west was a little-explored central campus, and to
the north was the governor's representative villa. The houses of the
upper class probably stood in front of the eastern bulge of the camp
wall or on the access road to the western gate of the amphitheater.
Whether the canabae was also completely surrounded by a wall and ditch
system is uncertain. Remains of such a fortification, two parallel
V-shaped ditches, could be observed at the Danube break-off in the
north. Finally, Septimius Severus also granted the camp city the status
of a municipium. Its inhabitants were therefore considered Roman
citizens (civitas Romana). Numerous traces of fire layers, replanning
and overbuilding testify that the canabae was destroyed several times or
at least badly damaged.
The first residential buildings of the canabae consisted mainly of
wood and were soon replaced by half-timbered buildings on stone
foundations. At the beginning of the 2nd century they were gradually
replaced by solid stone buildings, partly decorated with stucco molding,
mural paintings and mosaic floors, which were used until the 4th
century. In general, the building type of the mid-corridor house
prevailed there, with an average of four rooms, courtyards, walled
gardens, street halls and porches. Two very comfortable houses (nos. 48
and 49, early 3rd century) in the vicinity of the amphitheater, in which
non-commissioned officers (optio) of the legion probably lived with
their families, and ten somewhat more modestly furnished buildings on an
insula south of the main road have been archaeologically examined in
more detail 9, arguably characteristic of most of the dwellings in the
canabae (nos. 56–65). In these houses, one usually reached the living
quarters via a long corridor with two entrances. But rectangular
buildings without a corridor could also be observed there. They probably
housed workshops.
To the east of the legionary camp, isolated
farmsteads with enclosing walls were observed, in which mainly
handicraft businesses (forges, potteries, glassworks, etc.) were housed.
Farms were certainly also integrated into the canabae. A large pottery
(house no. 1 or castellum figlinarum) with an enclosing wall was located
on the western edge of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. It stood on a flat hilltop
and consisted of a courtyard with a fountain, three circular kilns with
diameters of 3.50, 5 and 5.80 meters and two functional buildings. The
enclosing wall formed a right angle to the west and south, which ended
in a semi-arch to the north and east.
The center of the canabae was a multi-phase campus a hundred yards southwest of the legionary camp. All that remains of him are scattered bricks and rubble. During the excavations, two construction phases that were clearly separate from one another in terms of building history could be observed. The older, smaller campus had a 139 × 115 meter courtyard surrounded by 5.80 or 7.30 meter deep porticoes. Later, a new facility, this time 225.60 × 182 meters in size, was erected above the previous building, shifted slightly further to the west in the floor plan. It consisted of two courtyards, one in the north measuring 128 × 137.50 meters and one in the south measuring 137.50 × 34.50 meters. The campus was bordered on three sides by elongated porticoes and enclosed halls. On the long sides in the west and east they had two naves and probably carried an upper floor. Statue bases and the lower leg of a life-size statue were found in the porticoes. Perhaps the bronze statue of Emperor Severus Alexander, whose head is on display in the Carnuntinum Museum, once stood there. On the north side was a pillared hall 6.20 meters deep. In the south-east, the campus was closed off by a 27-meter-wide hall building, to which apses were subsequently added on the east and west sides, which delimited the narrow sides of the building at a distance of around 150 meters. Since they were aligned exactly in the central axis, it was believed that this building was probably a market hall (basilica). But it is much more likely that it served as a training hall (basilica exercitatoria) where the garrison could carry out their military training program even in rainy weather or in winter. Later, the interior of the hall was divided into two long rectangular rooms by a dividing wall with pilasters. In the post-Roman period, a blacksmith workshop was set up in the eastern part of the hall. The campus axes were aligned with the governor's villa. The campus probably served the civilian population as a central market and for the garrison as a roll call and training ground. It is one of the largest structures of this type known to date on the territory of the former Roman Empire.
At the end of the 2nd century the villa of the governor and legionary legate (praetorium) was built, which was 400 m west of the camp, north of the Limes road and directly on the steep bank of the Danube. Due to landslides caused by erosion, only small remains of it (foundation walls of two 20 meter long, hall-like rooms and one room) have survived. The rooms were equipped with wall paintings and floor heating. An altar found there, donated to the goddess Aequitas/Eudikia between 246 and 248, is now in the Museum Carnuntinum. It was commissioned by the governor Titus Pomponius Protomachus and enabled the building to be identified. Excavations in this area are still difficult and dangerous, as the steep bank is in acute danger of falling.
Castra singularis
Carnuntum is one of the few Roman residential
cities where the quarters of the governor's bodyguard (castra
singularis) could also be located. In 2015, a building complex
surrounded by a wall was discovered between the Praetorium (south) and
the campus using ground radar. It was aligned to the east, towards the
legionary camp and not, as is usual with most of the Limes forts, to the
north towards the Danube. The fort bordered on other buildings to the
south and west at a distance of only about 4-6 meters, while the Limes
road probably ran right past the northern front. Its area covered an
area of about 183 × 99 meters, about 1.8 hectares. Immediately outside
the southern wall was a group of buildings, some of which were
hypocausted, perhaps a thermal bath. Judging by its location and
structure, this complex could only have been occupied by the Guards
(equites and pedites singularis). The camp had a long rectangular plan
with rounded corners and had at least three entrance gates (north, east
and south). However, two of them (north and south gates) were not
central, but positioned in the eastern part of the fortification. At the
south gate, a tower-like extension could be recognized during the image
analysis. At least this gate was probably flanked by one or two towers,
as was usual in mid-imperial forts. However, the intermediate towers and
defensive moats customary in Roman forts were missing. In contrast to
the other military camps in Carnuntum, it was not particularly strongly
fortified, but only separated from the camp town by a 1.8-2.0 meter wide
wall.
There were at least six other buildings in the eastern half
of the site, the function of which has not yet been specified. The
approximately 21 × 28 meter camp headquarters (principia), the
commandant's house (praetorium) and the armory (armamentarium) and a
crew barracks were probably there. In the western part there were four
more crew barracks, 8 meters long, lined up closely together, which
suggests a crew strength of 400 to 500 men. All had a slightly broader
head building at their north end - where the officers were housed - and
were laid out in pairs, back to back. The scan evaluations showed that a
living unit consisted of two chambers (contubernia) and was probably
much larger and better equipped than those in the barracks of the
legionary camp.
One of the largest building complexes of the canabae was located on
its south-eastern periphery. The remains were discovered in the late
19th or early 20th century in the south of the Mühläcker area, near the
railway line. Among other things, numerous altars, reliefs and statues
were recovered from him. The votive monuments and statues found there,
e.g. However, B. von Iuppiter Dolichenus and Minerva did not favor a
specific deity and its cult. Since the floor plan differed significantly
from the Roman thermal baths known at the time, the excavators
interpreted it as a medicinal or legionary bath and filled it up again
after the investigations were completed.
There was no internal
opening up or subdivision through side streets or alleys. The
orientation of the building was also not based on the street network of
the Canabae. Apparently, the bath was built later on the south-eastern
periphery of the settlement. Aerial photos taken later showed that it
was much larger than the first excavations initially suggested. The
building, measuring 200 × 220 meters in total, was apparently divided
into several functional areas due to its spatial structure and the
orientation of the building lines. It consisted of up to 60 nested
rooms. On the north side was a hall oriented west to east. The majority
of the rooms are also based on this orientation. The actual bathing
facilities were located in the eastern part. There the excavators found
several apses, circular rooms, water basins, heating ducts in the walls
and floors as well as a widely ramified system of ducts. The rooms had
marble or brick floors and were decorated with locally made statues,
imported marble slabs and wall paintings. To the north and west were
encountered more halls and long corridors and courtyards surrounded by
porticoes. Only a few of the rooms could be heated.
The dating of the building complex is uncertain. During the
excavations, a consecration altar of Licius Vitalis, stable master
(strator legati) of a commander of the Legio XIIII from the period
between 222 and 235, was discovered in one of the walls. The building
must have been built on a large scale in these years. Whether it was
created at that time cannot be said. Its cornerstone could also have
been laid in the 1st or 2nd century. While ceramics and military
equipment were still represented until the second half of the 4th
century, their use in the 5th century can no longer be clearly
identified. Despite its peripheral location, the area may not have been
used as a burial ground in the late period. Even later investigations
did not find any solid hydrogeological or archaeological evidence that
would have supported an interpretation as a thermal bath. Perhaps in
reality it was just a representative magnate's villa or a palatial
building that had a lavishly equipped bathroom.
road system
The road network of the canabae was irregular; However, in some sections
of the investigations, streets arranged at right angles were also
recognizable. The camp town was mainly developed through three streets:
the Limesstraße, which as the via principalis crossed the legionary
camp and then continued westwards, always along the banks of the Danube,
to the civilian town,
the via praetoria/decumana, which left the
legionary camp through the southern gate and continued south-east to the
castle of Gerulata (Rusovce, Slovakia), as well as
the Amber Road,
which ran south-west from the western gate of the legionary camp and
which led to Italy via Scarbantia, Savaria and Poetovio.
Amphitheater I is the only canabae excavation site that can be
visited in its entirety. It served primarily as a weapons training
ground for the legionnaires. Gladiator fights (munera) and exhibition
hunts (venationes) also took place there, presumably also games
specially arranged for the troops. The amphitheater was initially a
largely free-standing structure that cut far less into the terrain than
previously assumed. Residential and commercial buildings have been built
around the theater since the 3rd century, spreading towards the cavea
wall. Some were fitted with hose heaters. As a result, mixed development
prevailed, with residential and commercial buildings overlapping. Two
cupola furnaces and a pit in which lime was burned were also found. An
extremely rare coin depicting Dryantilla, wife of the usurper
Regalianus, was discovered in one of the furnaces.
The early
theater building was built in the second half of the 1st century and was
made entirely of wood apart from the substructures. After this wooden
structure burned down (perhaps as planned), it was rebuilt in stone.
Researchers have long associated this with a fragmented building
inscription from the second half of the 2nd century, according to which
a certain Gaius Domitius Zmaragdus from Antioch on the Orontes had
donated an amphitheater. However, the analysis of numerous newly found
fragments of another building inscription in 2013 showed that the stone
phase of the amphitheater dates back to the reign of Emperor Vespasian
(69-79). The building inscription of the Zmaragdus, on the other hand,
probably refers to the amphitheater of the civilian town of Carnuntum,
which was not even known when this inscription was found. The stone
construction phase of the amphitheater was still in use until around 300
and was repeatedly repaired up to then (masonry in herringbone
technique), but finally demolished to obtain building material for the
renovation of the legionary camp under Valentinian. The wall structures
visible today are all reconstructions that were not built until the
beginning of the 20th century.
The 97.55 × 76.40 meter multi-phase building was about 110 meters
away from the north-east side of the legionary camp, just off
Limesstrasse in a natural depression in the ground. It was about 14
meters lower than the legionary camp and therefore did not restrict the
view of the apron. The building had an elliptical floor plan oriented
from east to west, the arena (cavea) measured 72 × 44 meters, the
surrounding rows of seats offered space for 8000 spectators. As the
square sloped towards the north towards the Danube, the outer wall there
had to be built a little higher and reinforced with buttresses. The 1.5
meter wide arena wall, which essentially consists of quarry stone, was
covered with hand-worked blocks and originally painted red. It was
connected to the outer wall by the supporting walls arranged in a
spoke-like manner and to the inner cavea wall by radial or spoke-like
walls, which carried the wooden benches of the spectator stands. The
bottom row of seats was directly on a mound of earth. The higher ranks
on a wooden structure could be reached via stairs. In front of her was a
wall made of ashlars, the so-called podium wall, which delimited the
arena. Their blocks, connected with metal dovetail clamps, were
originally covered with a light whitewash and colored borders. In
addition to incrustation painting (imitation gemstones), which could be
detected on the remains of plaster, battle scenes were probably also
depicted on it.
The floor of the arena was made of rammed earth;
only a small section had been paved with stone slabs, probably only
later. In the middle was a rectangular water basin which, equipped with
an overflow, could be drained via a canal through the north gate if
necessary and was probably also used to clean the battlefield. The pool,
which is covered today for safety reasons, is fed by a still functional
ring collector, which also drains the rainwater. The drainage canal
consisted of clay pipes that led the sewage directly into the Danube.
During performances it was covered with wood. Along the arena wall was
another channel that was also intended to drain the arena.
In the
center of the southern spectator stand was the elaborately designed
"Emperor's or Governor's Lodge" (pulpitum). It could be entered via a
separate entrance. The two columns were only brought there from the
legionary camp when the theater was renovated in the 19th century. The
box was probably only intended for particularly high-ranking guests of
honor at the games. Opposite her, directly above the north gate, was the
one for the town magistrate of the civil town with stone benches. The
inscription honoring the four councilors has been reconstructed. The
north gate also served as a mortuary, for the removal of animal
carcasses and for the passage of the drainage canal.
The main
entrances were to the east and west of the building. It was a
tripartite, lockable gate system that tapered in a funnel shape from the
outside to the inside. They were designed in elaborate stone
architecture, with a block weighing up to 750 kg. The spectators entered
the amphitheater from outside via so-called vomitoriums. Traces of these
steps were found, among other things, north of the east gate.
In the west gate there was a small niche for a statue of a god and on its north side a later added U-shaped “animal kennel” (vivarium) consisting of twelve stone pillars with conical inlet grooves for lattices that are still visible today. The square around the kennel was paved. Inside was a paved middle path. At the entrance to the arena, the stone threshold and a latch and a door pan hole were still there. The shape of this alleged kennel, missing supports or those that were not found in the findings, as well as the extremely massive pillars, the grooves of which are said to have accommodated wooden scissor lattices, are partly free interpretations of the traces in the original building findings.
Next to the west gate of the amphitheater there was a three-room
small temple of Nemesis (nemeseum). A wooden predecessor building stood
there before the middle of the 1st century. The wooden temple was
probably succeeded by two separate buildings built in stone in the last
quarter of the 1st century. It consisted of a cella with a southern apse
for the erection of the statue of the gods. The apse was decorated at
the top with rosettes made of fired clay and stone coffers painted
white. The cult room was somewhat lower due to the sloping terrain and
could be entered via three steps on the south-east side. When it was
discovered in situ, the fragments of the Nemesis statue and nine altars
and statue bases were still there. Next to the apse, a stone bench with
a step back ran along the wall, which served to place votive offerings.
Towards the end of the 3rd century the cella was extended by a vestibule
and a vestibule with further stone benches and in the south by a small,
single-room sacellum. In the porch stood a water basin carved from the
foliate cup of a column capital. The antechambers were red, the cella
painted in several colors. The remains of statues of Diana-Nemesis,
Hercules holding his son Telephos and nine consecration altars were
found in the temple. Most of the inscriptions were dedicated to the
goddess Nemesis, others to the emperor Commodus and the god of war Mars.
The statue in the apse was donated in 184 by the highest-ranking
centurion of the legionary camp (Primus Pilus) of Legio XIIII, Quintus
Ref[…] Mansuetus. One of the Nemesis altars was commissioned in 187 by
the administrator of the Nemeseum (curam agens Nemesei). During the
excavations in the rubble of the temple, numerous slingshots from a
Roman torsion gun (balistae) were also discovered. In the ground between
Amphitheater I and the legionary camp there was a large number of iron
crutches. Perhaps the attackers had taken cover there during a siege of
the camp, after which the Nemeseum was heavily shelled by the defenders.
Water supply
Ambiguities and conclusions
How the water supply
of the military camps was managed has not yet been fully clarified.
During the excavations, numerous brick water pipes, sewers, running
wells, fountains, distributors, wooden and lead pipes, but also scoop
and draw wells and cisterns were found. Although we now know in great
detail about the settlement structure of the Carnuntian Canabae and
thanks to the old excavations the plan of the legionary camp is almost
completely available, the water supply of the eastern half of the
settlement of Carnuntum can only be reconstructed insufficiently. A
major reason for this was the lack of large-scale investigations in this
area. No further related projects have been initiated since the research
activities of Josef Dell on the Solafeld in the 1890s. Differently
developed pipe systems led to the settlements from the south, west and
apparently also from the east. In addition to the Solafeld line or the
Roman water line in the western Canabae, two other supply lines are
likely: a line coming from the western slope of the Pfaffenberg, which
was routed over an aqueduct bridge in the direction of Canabae, and one
running from the south to the cavalry fort.
Pfaffenbründl
In
1928, miners discovered a Roman water pipe, one meter high and two
meters wide, in Lange Gasse. Other sections had previously been observed
at the old schoolhouse and in the parish garden. It ended in a "covered
outflow" at the so-called Pfaffenbründl, about 200 meters east of the
parish church of Petronell and still supplies fresh drinking water
today.
At the end of the 19th century, Josef Dell examined a 1,070 m long
brick fresh water pipeline running from north to south, about 1.5 to 2.5
km south of the legionary camp. The beginning and end of the line had
already been destroyed. The source was probably in the Black Earth
soils. The approx. 60 cm wide line, whose walls consisted of quarry
stone walls, was covered with stone slabs laid horizontally and
roof-shaped. It reached a height of between 1.20 and 1.50 m and was
accessible throughout. In the northern third of the aqueduct, a side arm
coming from the south-west discharged, which could still be traced for a
length of about 200 m. Josef Dell counted nine manholes on both line
sections. There were probably many more. They were laid out at intervals
of about 33 to 55 m. At manhole VII, Dell discovered another side arm
branching off to the north, which was walled off after about 1.20 m and
could not be followed any further. At least three linear growth marks
can be seen on aerial photographs north of the excavated water pipeline,
the southern end of which is oriented towards the Solafeld pipeline,
while they drift apart radially to the north. They converge on different
areas of the southwest canabae. These structures can be interpreted with
a fair degree of certainty as a continuation of the aqueduct that
crossed the depression between the Solafeld and the Burgfeld, i.e. the
settlement area of the Canabae and the legionary camp.
Water
Pipe Canabae West
In the western area of the canabae, the main
sewer of the cavalry fort and a vaulted water pipe were found at the end
of the 1970s, which crossed each other there. While the sewer was routed
under the drinking water not far from the north-east corner of the
forum, it was decided to lay the water pipe under the sewer near the
cavalry fort. The direction of flow of the water pipe, which was
interrupted by a sand trap and whose drinking water channel narrowed in
front of the sink shaft, ran from west to east. It is not known why the
sewer was not deepened further. Perhaps they wanted to save themselves
the extensive digging work in the unstable, gravelly subsoil. A section
of water pipe north of the Canabae campus, discovered by
Groller-Mildensee in 1902 and running from the south-west in the
direction of the legionary camp, represents a third clue to the water
supply of the legionary camp and Canabae, which has been confirmed by
excavations. It was located 50 to 60 m from the south-western camp wall
a trough-shaped installation in the cable harness, the function of which
has not been fully clarified. It was probably a small distribution tank
from which four lines branched off. The basin probably served as an
inlet for a section of pressure line that overcame the camp trenches and
at least supplied the buildings in the vicinity, such as the camp
hospital, with fresh water. However, this pipe was probably not used for
the main water supply of the camp. Its continuation, which had the same
cross-section as the stretch before the trough, apparently received the
overflow and directed it further north, perhaps towards the west gate or
the governor's mansion. The evaluation of aerial photos revealed a
connection between the crossing structure at the cavalry camp and
Groller's water pipe. Between two cul-de-sacs, which led to Gräberstraße
and Limesstraße, there was a distinctive linear moisture mark, which
flows directly into the Groller line at the forum. It may have been the
still unexplored section of this water pipe.
Aqueduct at
Pfaffenberg
Josef Dell discovered a third line on the northern slope
of the Pfaffenberg, which, however, led in the direction of Hainburg.
Aerial photos provided the first concrete indications of another water
pipe on the western slope of the Pfaffenberg. They showed that numerous
linearly arranged, around 200 m long dry marks ran across the
Weingartfeld field. However, these were not continuous, but only
punctiform growth marks, possibly the pillars of a Roman aqueduct stood
there. The source of this water pipe may have been on the western slopes
or at the foot of the slope of the Pfaffenberg, perhaps near the
Hundsheim waterworks. It probably supplied the baths in the south-east
Canabae.
The most important religious duty of the soldiers was participation in the rites of the Roman state religion, because this was also intended to express loyalty to the ruling imperial family. However, returning soldiers in particular also introduced other cults and religions to Carnuntum, which has been archaeologically proven. Usually they simply merged their supreme imperial god Iuppiter with those gods whose cults they had come into contact with during their campaigns (syncretism). Among them were Iuppiter Dolichenus, Iuppiter Heliopolitanus, Iuppiter Tavianus and Iuppiter Casius. As is typical for a military location, Mithras in Carnuntum in particular enjoyed great veneration, as evidenced by several proven cult sites of this god, who originally came from Persia. There were also finds of Syrian and Egyptian deities (Isis, Serapis). The breakthrough for the gradual spread of Christianity was the Milan Agreement of 313. Through it, Christianity, like all other religions of the empire, advanced to a religio licita. This means that once this edict came into force, one no longer had to hide one's faith from the authorities. Although there are no clear indications of church buildings or meeting places in Carnuntum that would suggest the existence of a Christian community, at least some everyday objects with clearly Christian symbol decoration testify to a gradual penetration of ancient culture with its ideas and contents.
First plants
The originally 500 m long and 330 m high limestone
ridge of the Pfaffenberg lies in the east of Carnuntum and is part of
the massif of the Hundsheim mountains. The Romans probably called this
mountain range mons Karnuntinus. From there you had a good view far into
the Barbaricum in the north-west, to Vindobona in the west, to Lake
Neusiedl and the foothills of the Alps in the south-west. A lively Roman
cult and building activity took place there for several centuries. As an
elevation visible from afar, it was as if made for a temple district
where the inhabitants of the Canabae, but presumably also those of the
civil city, the Capitoline Triassic (Jupiter Optimus Maximus) and the
Roman state - personified by the deified emperors - could pay their
respects . Nevertheless, it seems to have belonged more to the camp town
as a place of state representation with a propagandistic character.
Although the cults corresponded to those practiced in the rest of
the Roman Empire, an unmistakable local color could be recognized in
their specific form, which manifested itself not only in the worship of
Iuppiter Carnuntinus, but also in the early and strong inclusion of
Eastern mystery religions. The inscriptions for this god on the
Pfaffenberg are additionally provided with the epithet "K", which is
meanwhile unanimously considered to stand for K[arnuntinus]. The
multiple mention of "III IDVS IVNIAS" is also striking. It was probably
a special holiday commemorating the consecration of the first Roman
Capitol of the province of Pannonia in Savaria (Szombathely). Possibly
the mountain as sacer mons Karnuntinus also played an important role in
the choice of location for Carnuntum, since according to the architect
Vitruvius the cult place for the supreme gods of the state should be
built at the highest point in the city.
The earliest building
finds date from the second half of the 1st century. The first temples
were not built until the reign of Hadrian (117-138). The plateau was
obviously not used by the Celts for religious purposes or the like, as
is often assumed. The administration and care of the temples as well as
the organization of the cult activities were entrusted to the priests of
the mountains (magistri montis), a college of four people who were
mentioned several times in inscriptions and who carried out the cult and
sacrificial activities in the temple district on behalf of the
townspeople. The cult community, the cives romani consistentes Carnuntni
intra leugam, was recruited mainly from the residents of the camp town.
It is assumed, however, that two of the magistri monti came from the
civilian town, since in some inscriptions decuriones can be added as
consecrators, whose membership in the tribe Sergia would speak for an
origin from the civilian town. This suggests a meaning of the sanctuary
that goes beyond the narrower area of the canabae (extra leugam).
During the time of the Tetrarchy, the temple district experienced
another brief upswing, which manifested itself in a series of dedicated
monuments. The last verifiable dedication to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus
dates from the year 313, when Emperors Constantine I and Licinius came
to the Milan Agreement, which put Christianity on an equal footing with
the other religions recognized in the empire. In the time that followed,
the official cultic acts for the old gods may have been discontinued for
good. Most of the statues and altars were violently destroyed at the end
of the 4th century. At this point, the use of the temple precinct
abruptly ceased. Many artefacts clearly showed signs of being hit by
picks or similar tools. The buildings were then either left to decay or
demolished for building material. Numerous consecration altars were
partially made into spolia on the spot. The trigger was probably the
elevation of Christianity to the sole state religion under Theodosius I.
The associated imperial edict of 391/392 prohibited the further practice
of pagan cultic acts in the empire. The iconoclasts also evidently took
great pains to chop up the statues into the smallest possible pieces, in
order to prevent a revival of the ancient cults in the "places of
worship of the cursed demons" (omnia daemonum templa). The last remnants
of the ancient temple district finally fell victim to the steadily
progressing quarrying work in 1985. However, the most important
artefacts could still be recovered by the archaeologists in the course
of an evacuation campaign lasting several years or documented before
their destruction.
development
The buildings of the approx. 7000 square meter
mountain sanctuary consisted of a number of smaller temples, a meeting
building, numerous pillar monuments, consecrated altars and a small
theater for cult games. They were probably still visible from the
adjacent Barbaricum. The epigraphic legacies from Pfaffenberg in
particular are very extensive. The oldest dedicatory inscriptions go
back to the middle of the 1st century AD. The ancient building
structures were completely uncovered during the excavations. According
to the location, function and form of the findings, the following
typology could be established:
cult theatre
Temples of Jupiter
Imperial altar (ara Augustorum)
Jupiter and Emperor columns
consecration altars and chapels
Priest or meeting house of the
magistri montes
The temple precinct could most likely be reached via a processional
route (via sacra Carnuntina), which started from the camp town and led
over the Kirchenberg and the gently rising northern slope to the
Pfaffenberg plateau. The road probably also passed Mithraeum I.
Cult theatre
The cult theater stood in the southwest of the slightly
sloping mountain plateau. It was used to hold ludi publici (including,
for example, the Trojaritt or Geranostanz performed by young people), as
well as parades, processions, etc., which played an important role in
the cult of the gods or emperors. It is one of the largest buildings on
the Pfaffenberg and was probably built in Severan times.
An
approx. 2 meter high "arena wall" enclosed a round-oval square with a
diameter of 40-42 meters. However, this form was not created on the
basis of a given construction plan, but rather its course was adapted as
far as possible to the natural conditions of the area. To the west of
the entrance gate was a spectator stand whose rows of seats could be
reached via a staircase. The substructures were made of stone, the
pillars and rows of seats only made of wood. On the east side there was
another, albeit somewhat smaller grandstand. She was u. a. decorated
with relief panels and probably only reserved for the legion officers
and other guests of honor. The dating of the complex is based on the
assumption that an inscription discovered in 1912, in which the
construction of a 100-foot-long and 7-foot-high wall by the youth league
of the Iuppiter Dolichenus cult (iuventus colens Iovem Dolichenum) is
reported, should be regarded as the building inscription of the cult
theater is. However, since the first find report mentions that this
inscription plate was built into the foundation of the theater, it must
have been used secondarily. It is therefore more likely to be attributed
to the western entrance gate of the sanctuary, whose corridor-like walls
corresponded exactly in length to the dimensions given in the
inscription. This gate system of the cult theater (Propylon) was located
in the northwest of the summit plateau, about 30 meters from the center
of the temple district. It was uncovered by Groller-Mildensee in 1898
and its floor plan documented. The gate, which dates from between 128
and 138, consisted of two parallel walls 45 centimeters wide and 15
meters long. The walls formed a 3.80 meter wide entrance, the front of
which was decorated with two pilasters. In 1970 it was completely
destroyed by the quarry work.
Temple I
The first building on
the Pfaffenberg is a temple to Iuppiter. According to an inscription on
an architrave found near the temple, it was consecrated by Lucius Aelius
Caesar, Hadrian's adoptive son, who stayed in Pannonia Superior for some
time in 137. The 9.16 × 5.32 m building was oriented from north to south
and equipped with a cella and a columned front (portico). In the sanctum
stood a painted seated statue of the deity.
Temple II
After the cult theater, this temple is the second largest known
building on the Pfaffenberg. The building was probably built towards the
end of the 2nd century, either immediately after the Marcomannic Wars or
on the occasion of the elevation of Septimius Severus to the throne
(193). It was a hall building measuring 13.45 × 10.40 meters, which was
adjoined by a small, almost square room (S 1) in the north-west and a
larger rectangular room in the south-east (S 2). Both could be entered
from the hall. One had an additional door to the southeast. The building
had a portico in front consisting of six pillars or columns. The 5.30
meter wide central part of the hall had two U-shaped walls that were
just over 10 meters long and were around 0.60 meters apart from the
significantly thicker side walls. Eugen Bormann and Werner Jobst
considered Temple II to be the Capitol Temple of the Canabae, since the
camp town was probably accorded the same status as the civilian town
from the reign of Severus onwards. Furthermore, the almost intact heads
of the statues that had been placed there were discovered during the
excavations and could be assigned to a group of figures from the
Capitoline Triassic. This interpretation is controversial in research.
It could also have been a kind of meeting place for cult banquets. The
two adjoining rooms, which were needed as storage rooms or kitchens for
such banquets, point to a dining room. According to Groller-Mildensee, a
rectangular set of brick slabs was found in the east corner of room S 2,
which probably served as a hearth. However, Temple II could also have
served as a place of worship for an oriental deity.
Temple III
Oriented east-west, this 5.91 × 4.73 m Leitha limestone temple to the
Ante was also dedicated to Jupiter, as evidenced by fragments of a
marble statue placed within. Its foundations were completely uncovered
during the excavations. At the front of the building were two columns
with Corinthian capitals, behind the vestibule was the cella with the
Holy of Holies. The temple may have been built in the time of Antoninus
Pius (138-161) or Marcus Aurelius.
Imperial altar or Imperial and
Jupiter columns
South of Building E, three roughly rectangular
foundations were found about 5 meters apart. Dedicatory altars probably
stood on them. There were also numerous fragments of statues, columns
and a portrait head of Marcus Aurelius, some of which were larger than
life. It may have been an altar for the emperor cult (ara Augustorum).
The complex was flanked by two columned monuments, one supporting the
statue of Marcus Aurelius, the other either that of his son and
successor Commodus, or of Jupiter enthroned. To the east of the imperial
altar there were other columnar monuments, of which only the cast mortar
foundations were left. The columns on square bases were mostly set on
statues of Jupiter. On their sides were reliefs depicting Roman gods
such as Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Victoria and Hercules. Particularly
noteworthy was a statue of Iuppiter Casius, a weather god originally
from northern Syria, whose cult sites have been documented throughout
the Roman Empire. The specimen set up on the Pfaffenberg carried an iron
trident on its head, which was probably supposed to represent a bundle
of lightning.
consecration altars and chapels
Up to 350
consecration altars were probably erected on the Pfaffenberg. They and
some chapels were located on the large temple forecourt, which spread
south and west of the above-mentioned cult buildings and occupied most
of the mountain plateau. There, 20 smaller pedestals could be observed
on which such altars were placed. Archaeologists were able to recover
hundreds of fragments of their inscriptions during the evacuation work.
The consecration altars can be divided into five processing types. The
specimens dedicated to Jupiter were up to 1.80 meters high because of
the long title. Their donors were mostly soldiers or the inhabitants of
the camp town.
Office building of the magistri montis
The priests quorum office building, designated Building A, stood on
the northeast edge of the temple precinct. Groller-Mildensee incorrectly
identified it as a watchtower. In the course of the evacuation measures,
it was completely uncovered and its true function was recognized on the
basis of the numerous inscriptions found. It had a slightly warped, 8.85
× 7.50 m square floor plan. The rising, 50 centimeters thick masonry
(partly more than a meter high) stood on a 60 centimeters wide and 50
centimeters high rubble stone foundation. The stones of the walls were
piled up in ear or herringbone technique. There were also numerous
spoils in the masonry. The rooms were plastered inside, the outer walls
obviously not. Each of the priests had been assigned their own room to
carry out their duties. The organizational structure of the college of
priests is also reflected in the structure of the house and the division
of the rooms. The building was probably built in the 3rd century, traces
of previous buildings could not be found.
Stills
The
sculptural equipment with statues of emperors and gods was numerous and
of high quality. Most of the Pfaffenberg sculptures were recovered
during excavations between 1970 and 1985. They were supplemented by some
finds from earlier investigations. The collection consists of around 40
works of art of different size and quality. With the exception of one
marble statue, they were carved from local limestone, including at least
11 seated statues of Jupiter enthroned. Some of these depictions of
Jupiter, some larger than life, contained historically particularly
interesting details. But statues of other deities, such as those of
Juno, Minerva or Victoria were also set up in the temple area. The
sculptural finds also included a head of Emperor Marcus Aurelius that is
now lost, a statuette of a genius and a few fragments of sculptures of
oriental gods.
building complex
In the southeast corner of the canabae (Flur
Mühläcker) was an extensive, multi-phase building complex from the 2nd
century, of which about 10,000 m² of its area could be excavated. It
consisted of several cult buildings, a thermal bath and the associated
functional buildings. According to the inscriptions on two consecrated
altars and a tabula ansata, the sanctuary founded in Traianic-Hadrian
times was dedicated to Iuppiter Heliopolitanus, who was worshiped in a
temple on the east side of the temple area. The temple area, dedicated
to the cult originally from Baalbek in modern-day Lebanon, is the only
known sanctuary of this type north of the Alps. The buildings were
grouped around a 30 × 20 meter trapezoidal courtyard. The cult precinct
may have been walled on all sides. The entrance was to the east. A
residential wing, perhaps for priests or believers, has not yet been
fully excavated. Before the erection of the temple buildings, there were
wooden frame buildings from the early phase of the Canabae, which
functioned as residential and farm buildings (so-called Blockhaus K).
Temple of Cybele
In the east was a 9.50 × 4.80 meter podium
temple (Building A) which was probably dedicated to the goddess Cybele.
Judging by the remains of the façade cladding, it could have been
erected around 150 as a rectangular building with a columned front.
After the destruction of Temple A, a courtyard measuring 18.5 × 17
meters (Building C) was built south of it at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd
centuries (Building C), in the center of which is a square 3.80 × 3.70
meters measuring altar or chapel foundation was located. The courtyard
entrance was to the west. After the chapel was abandoned around 200, a
podium temple (building B) was built next to the foundations of temple
A, this time measuring 8.20 × 5.70 meters. It consisted of a cella and a
vestibule (pronaeus). A statue of Cybele was probably erected on the
east side of the cella.
Mithraeum
The long rectangular
mithraeum (Building H) stood to the south and measured 31 × 15 metres.
The front facing the courtyard consisted of a portico five meters deep.
Two halls with lounger podiums could be entered via a shared anteroom
with the thermal baths. The smaller, three-nave hall (10 × 15 meters)
was equipped with hypocaust heating. The podiums only ran along the
longitudinal walls. On the narrow side opposite the entrance there was a
foundation for a cult image. In the larger hall (13 × 25 meters), the
podiums ran along the wall on three sides, on the fourth there was a
foundation block for an altar or a cult image. Two small rooms built
into the front halls probably served as a kitchen or depot for the
utensils needed for the ritual meals of the cult community. All four
inscriptions found in the cult area, two altars and two votive plaques,
refer to Iuppiter Heliopolitanus. It is all the more difficult to
determine which religious community used the two cult halls and to
narrow down their function.
Temple of Jupiter
To the west, an
unusually large temple of Iuppiter (Building J) with a floor plan of 25
× 13.25 meters adjoined the mithraeum. It was erected by the legionary
tribune Cornelius Vitalis in the 3rd century in honor of Jupiter Optimus
Maximus Heliopolitanus (after Heliopolis, today's Baalbek) according to
an altar inscription found in 1872. The axes of the temple were oriented
west to east. Access was probably via the portico of the mithraeum. The
interior was divided into three naves by the arrangement of the pillars.
There were brick podiums on the long sides. The floor consisted of
slanted brick slabs.
Thermal bath
To the east of the mithraeum
stood a small thermal bath (building F) measuring 19.5 × 20.5 metres.
The building could be entered on its north side. Then you got through a
narrow corridor first in the changing room. Behind this, to the south,
are the bathrooms (cold and warm water baths) with sitting and immersion
tubs in two vestibules. The hot water bath was heated by underfloor and
wall heating. The prefurnium stood on the east side of the thermal
baths. There was also a 5.50 × 3.50 meter latrine, which was connected
to the waste water canal of the thermal baths to the Altenburger Bach.
The floors and linings of the water tubs were made of terrazzo and
marble slabs. Judging by the brick stamps recovered there, the bath was
built by members of Legio XIIII.
Large parts of the buildings located directly on the river have fallen victim to erosion over the centuries. Naturally, this also includes moorings and port facilities. Such facilities were probably located near the civilian town (Petronell Castle) and the governor's palace, specifically in the area of the north-eastern canabae and the legionary camp. A large storage building, which was excavated near the Danube bank in 1899, speaks for this locality.
Mithraeum I (Mithras Grotto Am Stein)
The cult building was
located between Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and Petronell, near the quarry (Am
Stein) on the northern slope of the Pfaffenberg. The importance of this
place for the inhabitants of early Carnuntum can be explained by the
crossing over the Danube and the proximity of the mouth of the March. In
1853 the k.u.k. Coin cabinet conducted an excavation there under the
direction of Eduard von Sacken. According to his report, which is not
very detailed, the Mithraeum grotto is said to have had a semicircular
floor plan. Their crevices and bumps were evened out with masonry. When
it was uncovered, only a semicircular apse of the building was probably
preserved. In the north of the apse, remains of stucco work were found,
decorated with horizontal yellow-red lines. Part of the entrance wall
could also be examined. According to a building inscription, the
Mithraeum, which was already badly dilapidated at the time, was repaired
in the 4th century at the instigation of Caius Atius Secundus, a member
of the knightly ranks.
The inventory consisted, among other
things, of six consecration altars that had been donated by legion
officers, priests and slaves. In an inscription, Mithras is referred to
as the "creator of light" (genitor luminis). The central cult image,
which depicts the god slaying the bull, was about 1.80 × 1.50 meters in
size. Only the bull has survived from him. Furthermore, representations
and sculptures of the rock birth of the god (petra genetrix), the
torchbearer Cautopates, Mercury and a lion with open jaws were found in
the mithraeum. They consisted of Leithas sandstone and were originally
painted. Almost all finds from Mithraeum I are kept in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Mithraeum III
The
sanctuary with a total of 3914 meters was located in the western part of
Petronell, on a farm near the Hintausried field, Lange Gasse No. 80.
This sanctuary, which was probably built in the late 2nd century, was
one of the largest sacred buildings in Carnuntum. Oriented from east to
west, the building with a long rectangular floor plan essentially
consisted of a vestibule with a kind of transept, the cult room and the
holy of holies, all of which were vaulted by a wooden structure
supported by beams. The slightly sloping floor was made of rammed earth.
The walls and vault of the mithraeum were probably painted black and
red, and the vault and roof were made of wood. The cave-like cult room,
whose stucco ceiling was probably painted with a starry sky, was
intended to symbolize the universe. The large cult relief of the Mithras
Cave in the entrance hall of the Carnuntinum Museum, which depicts the
god killing the bull, comes from this sanctuary.
The 8.50 × 8.50
meter porch in the east was about 1.40 meters higher than the cult room.
It was adjoined by an 8.50 × 3.50 meter traverse through which the
actual cult room was entered, probably via a staircase, through another,
unusually large antechamber. The anteroom was probably the original site
of the Mithraic altar donated by the participants in the Imperial
Conference of Carnuntum, which was commissioned to mark the restoration
of this temple.
The traverse was separated from the cult room
measuring 24.50 × 9 meters by two small walls. The cult room was divided
by a 4.00 to 4.50 meter wide corridor, on each side of which were 0.60 ×
1.50 to 1.85 × 15.00 meter dining benches made of masonry (rubble stone
with horizontal brick bands). At the east end of the central aisle stood
a sculpture of a lion holding a ox's head between its paws. Next to it
was a stone shell that probably contained holy water. Two stone bases
were placed against the inwardly projecting bank walls, on which the
reliefs of the dadophors (torch-bearers) Cautes and Cautopates may have
stood. They adorned the entrance pillars of the central aisle. Her
scattered fragments were scattered throughout the central corridor.
Two building inscriptions were recovered on the southern bank wall,
which report on the restoration of the dining platforms. The brick base
for the cult relief was placed on the western rear wall of the cult
room. There the excavators found the ruins of the large, high-quality
cult relief of the killing of the bull from the 2nd century and a
seasonal altar. Another cult image, 76 centimeters in size, showed the
rock birth of Mithras. The originally 3.60 × 2.40 meter relief was
painted and consisted of four 40 to 50 centimeter thick sandstone slabs
that had been quarried in St. Margarethen in Burgenland. The foundation
inscription was carved in the upper part, which said that a certain
Titus Flavius Viator had commissioned the cult image. In front of it
stood the artfully crafted, approx. 30 cm high main altar with elaborate
figural decoration on a plinth. Its ensemble of figures represented the
wind gods and the four seasons. According to the inscription, the altar
was donated by Magnius Heracla. According to the findings, the cult
figures of the mithraeum were violently destroyed.
The finds from
the Mithraeum are kept in the Museum Carnuntinum.
The grave finds showed that people from all parts of the empire had settled in the Canabae. The Italians probably formed the majority at first, but Dacians, Dalmatians, Spaniards and North Africans also lived there. Certainly people from Germania magna were brought there as slaves or came to Carnuntum as soldiers. The Roman army, in particular, promoted this ethnic diversity through the deployment of the legion and the movement of troops to numerous theaters of war. In late antiquity, mainly Germans such as Sarmatians, Goths, East Germans and Burgundians settled there.
The hub of economic and commercial activity was the campus (or forum) next to the legionary camp. Many of the traders and craftsmen had set up their stalls in its lobby and adjoining rooms. Metal workshops were mostly located on the outskirts of the camp town because of the risk of fire. Utility ceramics were mainly produced for personal use and for regional markets. High-quality tableware (Terra sigillata) was imported from Gaul, Italy or the Germanic provinces. Another important line of business was the amber trade. The raw material was traded further south in Carnuntum and returned north from there in the form of refined products such as jewellery. The establishment of a large army base also brought with it a great need for agricultural products. Over time, a large number of farms or villas (villa rustica) and villages (vici) developed in the hinterland of Carnuntum, which, however, could not always be distinguished from one another archaeologically. The villa owners may have primarily engaged in agriculture, while the villagers mainly pursued commercial activities (e.g. spinning, weaving, woodworking). Around 50 people probably lived on the large estates, producing food for the legion, but also making clothing and consumer goods for their own use. Simple tools were made from the bones of slaughtered cattle. Repairs of tools or the like were done in the local blacksmith workshops. However, most of the goods produced by the villages and villas were certainly tailored to the needs of the Roman army.
In the early days of Roman rule, the population of the camp town and
the soldiers of the legionary camp were mostly buried along the Amber
Road. The section between the legionary camp and the Heidentor is known
in research as the grave street. The road to the graves stretched along
the Petronell-Rohrau connecting road a little beyond the Schafflerhof to
the Heidentor. From there it could be traced as far as Höflein, Bruck an
der Leitha and on the western shore of Lake Neusiedl. It was not paved,
its surface consisted of a firmly tamped, slightly curved layer of
gravel averaging 10 m wide.
The ancient tombs have been
systematically explored since 1885. The burial ground began about 500
meters southwest of the legionary camp. The burials are particularly
dense about a kilometer from the camp. This is where mainly soldiers and
the residents of the camp town found their final resting place. In the
1st and 2nd centuries the dead were cremated. The ashes were buried in
pits or urns, over which a tombstone (stele) or a memorial was erected.
Urn graves with steles were particularly popular during this period. But
there were also more elaborate brick and flagstone pits, square tombs,
chapels, pillared monuments, and funerary temples decorated with
sculpted lions or other carvings that imitated the monumental burial
structures of the south of the empire. Some tombs were surrounded by
rectangular or circular enclosures. A crematorium (ustrina) was also
found on the street of graves. It was eight feet in diameter and sunk
three feet into the ground. In front of the heating opening was an urn
filled with ashes. While in the early days body burials were still the
exception, especially among the lower class of the local population, a
clear increase in the number of skeleton graves in Carnuntum can be
observed from 200 onwards. The burial ground on the Amber Road was
occupied until the end of the 2nd century. Its plundering probably began
in Roman antiquity. When archaeologists uncovered the tomb of the
soldier Lucius Centyllius Priscus, they found it completely uprooted.
The tomb contents had been scattered around the pit and were still at
Roman-era ground level.
The custom of burial in sarcophagi became
popular in Carnuntum due to immigrants from the Orient. The deceased
were now increasingly buried in sarcophagi, some of which were
magnificently decorated, simple stone boxes, brick-slab graves and
brick-lined burial pits. One of these cemeteries was located southwest
of the camp and consisted of 96 burials, most of which had already been
plundered. The stone chests consisted of tombstones that had probably
been carried there from the Graves' Road in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Grave inscriptions from this period as well as a Nereid relief and a
portrait stele also came to light there.
A burial ground from
Late Antiquity was found on the south-eastern edge of the camp town. It
consisted mainly of brick slab tombs, the bricks of which bore the stamp
of Legio XIII. There were only a few sarcophagi and stone box burials. A
girl's grave had not been looted and still contained valuable gold
jewellery. The burial ground reached up to the built-up area of the
canabae.
Christian graves have not yet been discovered or
recognized in Carnuntum.
In the 1990s, geomagnetic measurements in the vicinity of the Heidentor revealed three other previously unknown military camps. During archaeological prospecting in the years 2012-2015, 20 (!) more such structures in the run-up to Carnuntum have now become known. However, only their defensive trenches are visible in the measurement data. They are characterized by a ground plan in the format of a playing card, i. H. the fences describe a rectangle or parallelogram with rounded corners. Characteristic of temporary marching camps, which, in contrast to permanent camps, were only intended for short-term accommodation of troops in tents.
In the second half of the 1st century, parallel to the legionary camp, civil settlements were built, modeled on Roman cities in Italy. The built-up area of the civilian town covered about three square kilometers. It stretched two kilometers west-east and about one and a half kilometers north-south. Its western end is one kilometer before Petronell (Gstettenbreite corridor) outside the enclosure wall of the Tiergarten. The eastern end is marked by the Lange Gasse-Parish Church line from Petronell. In the north, the houses stood close to the steep bank of the Danube, in the south up to today's federal highway 9 or the Heidentor. Since the beginning of the 2nd century it can be assumed that there has been extensive development in the sense of an organized community. Around 50,000 people probably lived there at that time. Emperor Hadrian subsequently granted the city the right to self-government. Under Trajan it rose to become the provincial capital of Upper Pannonia. During the Marcomannic Wars, Marcus Aurelius led his campaigns from there into the tribal areas north of the Danube. At the end of the 2nd century, Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor by the Danube legions and the civilian town was then elevated to the rank of a colony. In 308 AD the Tetrarchs held the Imperial Conference of Carnuntum there. In the middle of the 4th century a severe earthquake devastated the region. This natural disaster, combined with the steady reduction in border troops and the effects of the migration of peoples, eventually caused the city's economic and demographic decline. In the late 4th century, the already badly run-down town served as an army camp for Emperor Valentinian I for a campaign against Transdanubian tribal associations. In the 5th century the city was abandoned and deserted by its Roman inhabitants.
Watchtowers in the Canabae
350 to 400 meters from the east gate of
the legionary camp, among other things, the remains of two rectangular
stone towers lay under the houses of the Canabae. Its cast masonry was
one meter wide. Since the valley of the Altenburger Bach obstructed the
view from the legionary camp, these towers were probably intended to
secure access to the camp from this side. In the course of the spread of
canabae they were probably eliminated.
"Mattle Tower"
600 meters
southwest of the west gate, on Mattleacker Hall, was another 9 × 9.10
meter square watchtower protecting the Amber Road. Its cast masonry was
2.50 to 2.80 meters thick. The interior measured 4.0 × 3.30 meters. It
probably served as a signal tower. The ruined tower was still visible
into the 20th century.
Watchtower on Pfaffenberg and small fort "Am
Stein"
Whether there was also a watchtower on the Pfaffenberg plateau
could not be confirmed archaeologically, but it is very likely due to
the favorable location. On the slope of the Pfaffenberg (Am Stein), near
today's parish church of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, a fortification and a
three-arch gate with inscriptions of the Legio XIV Antoniniana as well
as the Legio X and XIII and a building inscription from the time of
Caracalla were allegedly discovered around 1874 . The ruins were
completely destroyed by the subsequent quarry work. Whether it was
actually a small fort to secure a bridge over the Danube could no longer
be clarified.
Bridgehead Stoppenreuth
This fortified bridgehead
(small fort?) was in the Stoppenreuther Au on the left bank of the
Danube, near the mouth of the Roßkopf arm, three kilometers from the
north-east corner of the legionary camp. At this point, the Amber Road
crossed the Danube, probably via a ship bridge. Whether the
fortifications were located on the northern or southern bank of the main
stream of the Danube in ancient times is unclear.
The systems are ground monuments within the meaning of the Austrian Monument Protection Act. Investigations and targeted collection of finds without the approval of the Federal Monuments Office constitute a criminal offence. Accidental finds of archaeological objects (ceramics, metal, bones, etc.) and all measures affecting the soil must be reported to the Federal Monuments Office (Department for Archaeological Monuments).
The Carnuntinum Museum is located in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. In the museum building, which was built by Friedrich Ohmann in the style of an antique country house villa between 1901 and 1904 and is the largest Roman museum in Austria, the most valuable finds (e.g. amber stocks) from the numerous excavations are presented to the public. It was personally opened in 1904 by Emperor Franz Josef I. Only a fraction of the inventory of archaeological finds from Carnuntum can currently be shown in the museum (about 4000 specimens). The rest was temporarily stored in several depots. In addition to the Carnuntinum Museum, the promenade in Petronell (residential part of the civilian town) with a city model on a scale of 1:300 can be visited in connection with the newly built visitor center, the late antique Heidentor and the two amphitheaters I and II. The foundation walls of the civil town's large thermal baths have been preserved and are open to visitors. The legionary camp, which was largely excavated in the 20th century, was filled in again and its walls are only recognizable as a terrain elevation. In Petronell there is also the privately run museum of the association Auxiliarkastell Carnuntum, in whose basement a junction of the long-distance water pipe and the sewer of the fort was conserved; temporary exhibitions are also held there.