Limes gate Dalkingen

About

The Limes Gate in Dalkingen is a unique Roman triumphal monument on the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes and is one of its most impressive ruins. Since 2005, the ancient border passage, which was developed into a triumphal gate under Emperor Caracalla, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with the entire Roman Limes complex in Germany. It is also part of the open-air museum of the Rhaetian Limes, which was established in 1972 and also includes the nearby Buch fort and its civilian settlement. The gate, which was declared a cultural monument in 2006, is located between the villages of Schwabsberg and Dalkingen in the Ostalbkreis district of Baden-Württemberg.

In antiquity, the gate must have been visible from afar, as it was erected in an exposed position on a hilltop. Today, the field and hiking trail from Schwabsberg to Dalkingen, which takes the course of the Limes, passes to the north of this former border crossing. The actual façade of the gatehouse was located to the south. Travellers who wanted to leave the territory of the Roman Empire to reach the free, unoccupied part of Germania ( Germania magna ) came from there. For many of them, Buch fort [ de ; ceb ], located around two kilometres to the south-west, with its civilian settlement ( vicus ), was certainly the last stop before the border. As the rich and often valuable artefacts found there show, the inhabitants of Buch must have achieved some prosperity through border trade.

As the field name " Mäuerlesbüsche " shows, knowledge of an ancient building near Dalkingen has survived for a remarkably long time. The remains of the gate were visible for many years. The first known excavation of this site took place in the early 19th century. In 1873, the archaeologist Ernst von Herzog (1834-1911) visited the site as part of his surveying work on the Roman border. The artefacts recovered at the time are considered lost. In addition to pottery, he found a bronze fragment of a female statuette. His report, published in 1880, also documents that the ‘remains of a tower’ had been excavated and that "masses" of rubble were still lying around. He also reported on a slab stolen from the mound of rubble in 1873, which was used secondarily as an entrance step to the Dalkingen churchyard. In the course of his work on the Limes Gate, archaeologist Dieter Planck succeeded in recovering this limestone slab in 1974. After the paving of Kirchstraße was completed in 1962, the 1.23 × 1.21 metre piece had been replaced by an exposed aggregate concrete slab and deposited behind the cemetery. The piece, which was not examined in detail until 2010, has a dovetailed hole on one side. It may have served as a pedestal for a statue of the emperor, which was placed inside the triumphal arch-like Limes Gate.

In the spring of 1885, further excavations were carried out at the Limes Gate under the state curator Eduard Paulus the Younger [ de ] (1837-1907), with the former general chief of staff of the Württemberg army, Eduard von Kallée (1818-1888), an antique enthusiast, taking over the visual documentation. This was followed in 1886 by a report by the archaeological pioneer Karl August von Cohausen [ de ] (1812-1894), who also presented the first reconstruction of the Limes Gate. No further scientific investigations were carried out afterwards. The archaeologist Oscar Paret (1889-1972), who in 1934 reviewed the current state of research for the publication of the Limeswerk [ de ], did not rely on Paulus' findings and Cohausen's publication for reasons that are inexplicable today, but instead drew up a different plan of the site without carrying out his own excavations. As a result, he imagined the Limes gate to be a field post, a small fort that corresponded structurally to the neighbouring fortifications. Planck assumed that Paret was unable to reproduce the older research results. The consequence of this entry in the Limeswerk was that it was published for decades that the function and significance of the structure had not been correctly recognised in 1885/1886.

It was only in the course of land consolidation that the Baden-Württemberg State Office for the Protection of Monuments [ de ] carried out another comprehensive assessment from 25 September to 23 November 1973 and from 1 June to 30 July 1974 under the direction of Planck. At the time, there was a risk that the structure, which was still visible as a two metre high mound of rubble, would be bulldozed in the course of road works. With the help of modern working methods, the building could then be interpreted as a repeatedly remodelled Limes gate with adjoining rooms for a border guard.

In 1975, the restored site was opened to the public as part of the European Year of Monuments and Sites. As the Dalkingen Limes Gate is the only structure on the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes to have been developed into a monument with a triumphal arch-like façade and its final design can presumably be seen in the context of a datable visit by Emperor Caracalla, it acquired a special status among the ancient legacies in the immediate Roman border region early on. According to a fragmentarily preserved inscriptional source, the Acta Fratrum Arvalium, the emperor crossed the Rhaetian border on 11 August 213 in battle against the Germanic peoples. Research has repeatedly linked this border crossing with the Limes Gate in Dalkingen. Among the proponents of this theory in 1988 were the Swiss archaeologists Walter Drack [ de ] (1917-2000) and Rudolf Fellmann [ de ] (1925-2013), although the archaeologist Harald von Petrikovits [ de ] (1911-2010) also opposed this idea in the 1980s.

When an extensive general refurbishment was completed in 2000, the gate was once again opened to the public in the presence of Planck. In January 2003, the school and culture committee of the Ostalbkreis district voted in favour of the future preservation of the site under a protective structure. In 2005, together with the entire Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, it was declared a World Heritage Site and in 2006 the Stuttgart Regional Council declared the Limes Gate a specially protected cultural monument. The costs for the protective structure, totalling 1,870,000 euros, were funded by the European Union, the then Baden-Württemberg State Foundation [ de ], the State Office for Monument Preservation, the Baden-Württemberg Monument Foundation [ de ] and the School and Culture Committee of the Ostalbkreis district. The 16 metre-high steel and glass construction, which cuts through the oldest wooden predecessor of the Limes Gate, encases parts of the more recent antique structure over an area of 23 × 21 metres. The construction work carried out in the summer of 2010 not only protects the covered ancient substance but also reduces the renovation and maintenance costs previously required. The height of the protective structure, which can be accessed during set opening hours and dominates the previously isolated site with its unconventional architectural design, is based on the presumed height of the former Limes gate. Its possible ancient appearance and dimensions are indicated inside the structure with printed fabric panels, which hang in their original size over the preserved stone stumps of the gate.

- The Limes Gate before the construction of the protective structure

View from the northeast; in the foreground are the foundations of an older Roman stone tower (1995)

Façade of the Limes Gate with opus reticulatum masonry (1995)

South view 2009; the opus reticulatum masonry is to the left and right of the passageway

- The exhibition inside the glass shelter

Side view of the shelter; in the background (left) is Dalkingen

Copy of an inscription in honour of Caracalla

In total, the archaeologists were able to identify six consecutive construction phases on the unusually well-preserved remains of the building, which also revealed the different construction periods of the Rhaetian Wall. The guards for the gatehouse and the troops who manned the watchtowers on the same site were most certainly provided by the nearby Buch fort.

It is possible that the Roman military first became active at this site around 160 CE. The dendrochronologically analysable material from the camp village ( vicus ) of Rainau-Buch, around 2.1 kilometres away, could support this idea. In addition to Planck, the Bavarian state conservator C. Sebastian Sommer [ de ] (1956-2021) also supported this dating approach concerning the construction of the entire Rhaetian and "Anterior Limes". The earliest absolute dating known from the Buch camp village is a finding dating from May/June 161 CE at the latest. As the isolated post holes found suggest, a Roman construction team initially erected a simple wattle fence along the intended boundary line as an obstacle to approach. This fence was located in the area of the subsequently erected gate, around two to five metres deeper in the Barbaricum than the more recent Rhaetian Wall. Immediately to the west of the foundations of the Limes gate, a deep post trench was found in a square, which may be the remains of a wooden Limes watchtower measuring around 5.5 × 5.5 metres. The northern half of this tower, which had already been destroyed, could no longer be archaeologically recorded. In front of the north-western and south-eastern flank of this tower, the wattle fence possibly ended, whereby Planck assumed in his more recent considerations that there could have been a narrow wicket gate between the south-eastern flank and the end of the fence there. The post settings found along the south-west side of the tower would thus have obscured the view of the gateway from the south and could be addressed as an additional safety measure.

In 1969, semi-circular split oak trunks were recovered as parts of the wooden Limes palisade on the southern edge of Schwabsberg in the area of the Jagst lowlands, which had been marshy since ancient times. Four samples were analysed by the dendrochronologist Ernst Hollstein [ de ] (1918-1988) in 1975. All samples dated from "late 165, possibly spring 166 CE". In 1974, the palisade in this area was archaeologically excavated again. Seven samples were then sent to the dendrochronologist Bernd Becker [ de ] for examination. In 1976, he dated the timbers to the year 165 CE. Wood from the Rotenbach Valley near Schwäbisch Gmünd provided suitable chronological information. There, on the border to the province of Germania superior, this wood was used to build a fortification that was probably erected in 164 CE (see Kleindeinbach small fort [ de ] ). The uncovered post pits in the area of the Limes gate also belong to this period. They mark a new construction phase, only a few years after the erection of the wattle and daub fence.

The fence was removed; around three metres to the north, a tightly packed wooden palisade of oak poles was built, for which a narrow trench had to be dug. At regular intervals, the excavators found semicircular indentations on the inside of the trench from a rear reinforcement created with the palisade. In more recent considerations, Planck assumed that the wicket gate had also been converted into a regular border crossing. The palisade ditch coming from the southeast aligned roughly with the eastern corner of the wooden tower. However, like the older wattle fence, it left a passage open between its end and the corner of the tower. The palisade ditch bent at a right angle to the south-west around three and a half metres from the south-eastern flank of the tower and also bypassed the tower at the same distance on its south-western side before leading back to the north-east in parallel alignment with the north-western flank of the tower and connecting to the western corner of the tower. This created an open courtyard around the tower on two sides, which was probably already suited for regular border controls.

In a further expansion phase - at a later date than the construction of the palisade - a first wooden gateway was erected to the south-east of the tower. In the lowest filling of its post trenches, which were unusually deep at up to 1.1 metre, a well-preserved sestertius from the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) was found alongside some pottery shards. The coin was not particularly worn and had been minted in Rome between 140 and 144 CE. In the past, the datable terra sigillata was also attributed to the first half of the 2nd century.

The 13.3 × 14.5 metres symmetrical wooden building with a largely rectangular floor plan was founded in post pits up to 1.1 metre deep. The wooden structure already had a passage leading from south to north. On both sides of the central passageway, three rooms could be made out in the north-west and four in the south-east. It is possible to imagine a guardroom, parlours and an administrative area for border traffic there. As the findings in the post-trenches suggest, the wooden Limes tower was probably embedded in the new complex and continued to be used. Research has identified certain similarities between the Limes gate and the small milestone forts [ de ] on Hadrian's Wall in northern England. There were also controlled passages into the unoccupied part. During the excavation, the deep post trenches gave the impression that the logs had been excavated before the stone structure was erected in Phase 5.