Today we met a group from the school at the Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fortress in the forest about 9 km from Oberursel. Seems the Romans were up here 2000 years ago trying to rule the whole world (or something like that). The Germanic tribes just never would completely submit however, so the Romans gave up their dream of world domination in this neck of the woods around 260 AD. But, not before they had built a "wall" over 340 miles long (supposedly second in length only to the Great Wall of China but not nearly as impressive) with several forts and watchtowers along the way. It was more a ditch with a wooden fence running alongside until all the posts began to rot.l For more information about the wall (called Limes) go to
http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/english/home_engl.htm. Hadrian is the one who completed the project (around the same time he ordered a similar wall built between Roman "England" and Scotland). See what can be accomplished with a lot of people willing to work for practically nothing for 25 years so they can become Roman citizens.
The wall next to and behind Murilo, plus all the buildings, were reconstructed on the original foundations found here. The 1/2 walls are an example of what all the buildings looked like when reconstruction began. As usual, frugal peasants had been using the site as a quarry for many years. The inscription behind the statue is a dedication from Kaiser "Bill" to his parents - he raised a lot of the money needed for the reconstruction - which gave him the right to overrule those in charge of making sure the reconstructions were historically accurate. Many of Wilhelm's errors have been corrected but a large portion of the outer "ramparts" still need to be fixed. He decided the openings between each small "tower" should be more narrow which was accurate for medieval times but not Roman. For more information about the Saalburg go to
http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/english/home_engl.htm. There is a small museum here with amazing artifacts found thrown into abandoned wells (pottery, glass, weapons, woodworking tools, shoes, chain mail, tweezers, musical instruments, everything you can imagine). And, because of the damp conditions, the artifacts were
very well preserved! Imagine what they'll be saying about us someday just by looking at our trash!!
Today we met a group from the school at the Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fortress in the forest about 9 km from Oberursel. Seems the Romans were up here 2000 years ago trying to rule the whole world (or something like that). The Germanic tribes just never would completely submit however, so the Romans gave up their dream of world domination in this neck of the woods around 260 AD. But, not before they had built a "wall" over 340 miles long (supposedly second in length only to the Great Wall of China but not nearly as impressive) with several forts and watchtowers along the way. It was more a ditch with a wooden fence running alongside until all the posts began to rot.l For more information about the wall (called Limes) go to http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/english/home_engl.htm. Hadrian is the one who completed the project (around the same time he ordered a similar wall built between Roman "England" and Scotland). See what can be accomplished with a lot of people willing to work for practically nothing for 25 years so they can become Roman citizens.
The wall next to and behind Murilo, plus all the buildings, were reconstructed on the original foundations found here. The 1/2 walls are an example of what all the buildings looked like when reconstruction began. As usual, frugal peasants had been using the site as a quarry for many years. The inscription behind the statue is a dedication from Kaiser "Bill" to his parents - he raised a lot of the money needed for the reconstruction - which gave him the right to overrule those in charge of making sure the reconstructions were historically accurate. Many of Wilhelm's errors have been corrected but a large portion of the outer "ramparts" still need to be fixed. He decided the openings between each small "tower" should be more narrow which was accurate for medieval times but not Roman. For more information about the Saalburg go to http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/english/home_engl.htm. There is a small museum here with amazing artifacts found thrown into abandoned wells (pottery, glass, weapons, woodworking tools, shoes, chain mail, tweezers, musical instruments, everything you can imagine). And, because of the damp conditions, the artifacts were very well preserved! Imagine what they'll be saying about us someday just by looking at our trash!!
1 comment:
Hey there.... Hadrian's wall had everything to do with the language development of "a" and "o" in England. Were you south or north? It meant everything. I had a sudden flashback to my university days in Copenhagen. A good flashback.
I continue to enjoy your blog.
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