Völkerwanderungszeitliche Frauengräber aus Hippo Regius (Annaba/Bône) in Algerien

Abstract

This paper reviews the dating of the Roman city wall of Cologne which belongs to the most important examples of antique architecture north of the Alps. The fortification is generally regarded as the first building project after the emperor Claudius promoted the Oppidum Ubiorum – the birthplace of his wife Agrippina
– to the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in 50 A.D. Therefore it is usually dated to the third quarter of the 1st century A.D. However – an examination of the sondages executed at the city wall shows that the fortification in the west and the east is erected over layers of the late 1st century A.D. A longer part
of the northern wall underneath the Cologne Cathedral dates to the middle of the 3rd century A.D. according to the latest research. Independently of this, a recently published building survey also sets the Roman northern gate in the years around 250 A.D. Due to stratigraphical observations, the actual research
opinion that the city was protected by the preserved stone fortification during the siege of the Batavians 70 A.D. (Tacitus Hist. 4, 66ff.) has to be rejected! Likewise, the wall building stands in no connection with the promotion of the settlement to colony. The early dating of the »Römerturm«, the nearly completely preserved tower at the northwestern corner of the Cologne city wall, was also disproved. This tower is especially remarkable because of its mosaic-like (»musivisch«) stone-work: Geometrical patterns compounded by coloured stones decorate the exterior of the tower in four horizontal layers. Today, this coloured decoration is still preserved at two further towers.
Descriptions from the 19th century testify that all still standing towers of the north and of the west wall possessed rich mosaic-like decoration; simple patterns were used for parts of the curtines. The dating of the mosaic-like stone-work of the Cologne towers based on a comparison with the alleged  mosaic-like decoration of Frejus’ city wall. The examination has shown that these wall sections in Frejus do not belong to the fortification, but are substructions that carried a palace-like building. Furthermore, coloured  stonework is not involved here, but parts of opus reticulatum which covered the concrete work and was even plastered. Mosaic-like stone-work hardly occurs; it is almost exclusively limited to Gallia, Germania and Britannia. All collected comparative examples date to the 2nd and the 3rd century A.D. The closest  example for the vivid Cologne wall surface is shown by the fortification of Le Mans which originates from the advanced 3rd century A.D. Due to the stratigraphical findings, the Roman city wall of Cologne cannot be erected before the end of the 1st century A.D. Longer parts of the northern wall date to the middle of the 3rd century A.D. Thus questions arise about the cause for the building and the uniformity of the fortification. Were sections of the fortification erected at different times, or were the northern and western wall widely renovated and thereby decorated with mosaic-like patterns in the middle of the 3rd century A.D? A conceivable cause for the building of the city wall is the promotion of Cologne to the capital of the newly-created province Germania Inferior in the late 1st century A.D. Or has the building of the wall to be seen in competition to the northern neighbouring city, Colonia Ulpia Traiana (Xanten), receiving a fortification at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D.? Can we exclude that Cologne remained unfortified during the 2nd century A.D.? Are
the wall sections in the cathedral vestry and the northern gate, reliably dated to the 3rd century A.D., later repairs of an earlier fortification, or does the entire fortification originate from the 3rd century A.D. as indicated by the mosaic-like stone-work? Then Cologne would have been fortified when the Germanic tribes represented a real threat to the city. Or did Postumus, who promoted Cologne to the capital of his realm, surround it with a wall?