Roman Temple Found in a German Forest Near Kapersburg
It started as a suspicious bump in the forest floor, half buried in soil, with stones that looked deliberately arranged. Now archaeologists say the stones are the foundations of a Roman temple.
The bump marked the first sign of buildings in the Roman military settlement beside Kapersburg fort, near Rosbach vor der Höhe in the Wetterau region of Hesse. Archaeologists from the state heritage office discovered it a few years ago in an area where a storm had cut a swath through the forest. Last year, the site was already described as a whole forgotten village next to the fort. The news of the temple comes from a report by Hesse’s public broadcaster, hessenschau, which cites the excavators.
The temple
A clear rectangle about five meters long showed up in the forest soil. In the middle sat a small square of well-preserved walls roughly 50 centimeters thick. District archaeologist Kai Mückenberger, an expert on the Roman frontier known as the limes, said it had to be a cult building: a temple. Katharina Grießhaber, who normally works at the Saalburg museum, said she and her colleagues were thrilled to uncover such a well-preserved foundation.
The prayer room seems to have had only three walls, so one side was open and may have held a wooden gate or grille. There are early signs of a strong foundation that surrounds the whole building, which would point to a covered walkway around the room, a classic temple type known from other digs.
The statues
Buried under fallen wall stones, the team found fragments of divine statues: the hand of a god, probably Mars, pieces of animals and an almost complete torso of a goddess. The torso still shows wings, a palm branch and a victory laurel, which identify the goddess as Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. The report does not say which god the temple itself honored.
A temple that outlasted the fort
Grießhaber describes Roman religion as a kind of deal: if Victoria supports you, you bring her a gift. That could explain why so many pieces of decorative figures turned up. The temple was in use in the third century A.D., and people kept visiting after the soldiers left the fort. Mückenberger found a piece of late antique jewelry next to it. The team is also waiting for a translation of a Latin inscription on a votive stone from the temple room, which may reveal what the Roman village was called.
Sources
Related Articles
