Oppidum Üetliberg

About

Oppidum Uetliberg was a La Tène era oppidum located near the top of the hill Uetliberg in what is now the Swiss canton of Zurich (Stallikon municipality, just outside the city of Zurich). It is one of the most important Iron Age fortifications in Switzerland, dating the very early La Tène or the late Hallstatt period (c. 500 BC).

Early excavations on the Üetliberg were made in the 1830s and 1860s. A 5th century BC burial field was destroyed when the Üetliberg railway was built in 1874. The fortified area was at a height of between 820 and 873 metres above sea level, surrounded by a system of earth walls extending to a maximal width of up to 2 km.

Outside the settlement area the so-called Fürstengrab Sonnenbühl, a rich burial of a 5th-century BC female. The toponym Uetliberg itself may continue the Celtic name of the site, although its exact derivation remains uncertain. The top of mount Uetliberg was settled from at least the Neolithic, amply documented in a total of some 60,000 small finds, the oldest artefacts dating to about 4000 BC.

There was a village-like settlement on the site by the late Bronze Age (Urnfield culture). The fortifications were built in the 5th century BC, corresponding...