Roman Fortress (2/10)
Roman Fortress
Twin Wall. Roman or Medieval.
At first I visited the old fortress located in a lonely forest for sightseeing. Detecting here requires a permit that will not be issued. Even without a detector search this was an interesting place to be. Private excavations at the beginning of the 20. century produced Roman blacksmith equipment which can be seen in the museum today. As usual in my search areas, no archaeological excavations were made in the last decades. In the late 1970s someone even found a Roman gold coin there. This person has probably used a metal detector though the literature keeps quite on this point. I think by today many people searched it with metal detectors.
The place is guarded by several concentric walls. The inner defense line comprises a mighty double wall, some 10-15 m high. When shooting the picture the camera was looking through the small “valley” between both walls. The backpack at the base of the tree serves for size comparison. The walls are so impressive they might appear natural first but they are artificial. I do not know whether they were erected in Roman or medieval times. In any case someone had a very strong interest to guard this place.
The core
The Castle's Core.
The core of the fortress is quite small. It is basically a triangle with a side length of some 70 m. Here the blacksmith’s equipment was discovered some 100 years ago. Today esoteric people use it in mild summer nights, in particular in the shortest night 21./22.June. Once I saw a sort of wooden tent. The translation of these are “transpiration huts”. These are telltale signs for esoteric activity. Whether these people pray or do some sort of meditation I do not know. There are even wild rumours of women, tired of modern civilisation, who dance around a fire naked. Maybe these are remains of some pagan feast but maybe these are just fantasies of some authors who are never invited to that sort of party.
View onto the river
View onto River.
A view onto the river shows how high the fortress was located. As always, its location was chosen according to defence criteria. In the old days the view was unobstructed. When fortresses were erected the trees were chopped down for best visibility.
(C) Thorsten Straub www.metal-detecting.de 2006-2019.