Roman camp at Hedemünden near Göttingen.

[Daniel S Peterson]

John, yes, an "insider" correctly stated these were dolabrae. I suspect they were displayed at the press conference and a reporter naturally assumed they were "battle axes". Of course, I am sure dolabrae have been used as battle axes on more than one ocassion.<br>
<br>
Even if a camp of Drusus, this is significant to the Kalkriese/Varus-Schlacht controversey for several reasons, including:<br>
<br>
First, the finding of large Roman sites like this illustrates the potential for many other large sites still undiscovered, so we need not decide Kalkriese "must" be the Varus battlefield simply because Augustan military objects and coins were found there.<br>
<br>
Second, there is a possibility that the river described by Tacitus as the Weser was actually the Wera. This may put us closer to the main camp of Varus now, and the major fighting probably far from there.<br>
<br>
Dan<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Uwe Bahr]

Ghandi quoted:<br>
<br>
Quote:</em></strong><hr>In only 20cm depth they found the first of four battle axes [>sigh40cm in length and decorated<hr><br>
<br>
Wouldn't this be the first find of decorated dolabrae - are anywhere photos of the artefacts or of the find spot in the net?<br>
<br>
Greets Uwe <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

If i understand well , a dolabrae can be a tool and allso ax for battle? <p></p><i></i>

[ghandi]

Dan wrote:Quote:</em></strong><hr>First, the finding of large Roman sites like this illustrates the potential for many other large sites still undiscovered, so we need not decide Kalkriese "must" be the Varus battlefield simply because Augustan military objects and coins were found there.<hr><br>
<br>
In the first case Dan is right. Actually we are looking for around a dozent battle sites and a unknown number of marching camp of 9. BC to 16 AD in Westphalia and Lower Saxony alone. But one should not forget that Kalkriese is the first ancient battle field in this area and it was detected because of the density of augustan finds.<br>
Thinking of the historical point of view (meaning the roman view) there was only one battle the germanic warriors were the possesors of the field after the battle (not so at Idistaviso, Pontes longi, Battle of the angrivarian wall etc.). Apart from following manipulation of the field by germanics and later romans, it is thinkable that the amount of lost roman material (archeological finds) is greater and therefore the density of finds.<br>
That, of course, is the theory. The following manipulation of any archeological site is left to imagination. What a shredyard of military equipment and other stuff means to german inhabitants in the neighbourhood means is self explanatory.<br>
The fact that at Hedemünden, the site of the new camp, the finds were sometimes nearly lying on the soil and the fact that this camp wasn´t found much earlier may have their reason because of the wooden and uncultivated nature of the area which it is still today and because that in those times it may have been the desolate border area of the two germanic tribes the chatti and the charusci. That could mean less manipulation after the romans left the camp area.<br>
<br>
ghandi <p>CHASUARI - Germanic Warriors of 1st ct AD.<br>
www.chasuari.de </p><i></i>

[Robert Vermaat]

Ghandi,<br>
<br>
I most certainly agree.<br>
Dan - sure there are many camps still to be discovered. I mean apart from this one, another Roman camp from 30 BC was discovered near Trier. There may be more close by (or hidden under modern settlements) and I'm sure more will be discovered.<br>
<br>
However, this fact is no evidence against Kalkriese. No, we 'must' not decide Kalkriese is 'it'. But if you decide so, do so on the basis of evidence, not on what 'can' or 'may'be found in the future.<br>
Yes, Chariovalda, I will shut up about Kalkriese now. But this latest camp had nothing to do with it, so the site still stands as an Augustan battle field. And Ghandi is right, the Varus battle site was probably one of the few left to the Germans, which may be why there are as much finds as can be put in Dan's large shoebox. And there may have been even less if the hillside had not slid downwards over a period of time, no doubt covering some of the metal with earth.<br>
<br>
Valete,<br>
Valerius/Robert <p></p><i></i>

[Chariovalda]

Quote:</em></strong><hr>What a shredyard of military equipment and other stuff means to german inhabitants in the neighbourhood means is self explanatory.<hr><br>
<br>
I think you mean "junkyard". But what it meant...your remark made me think (this phenomenon occasionally occurs...).<br>
INFLATION!<br>
I mean, here you are, a happy-go-lucky barbarian society where metal is still relatively rare. Those who sit on bog iron and "mine" it have it made: top of the barbarian economic heap.<br>
<br>
Then here come these Romans, get themselves chopped to pieces, and their equipment gets on the metal market. Disaster! Suddenly your precious bog iron plummets in value! Ruined speculators throw themselves off the roof of their wattle-and-daub offices! German armourers suddenly have to compete with cheap, ready-made Roman swords and mailshirts! Suddenly, every Thorismund, Daigalaif and Hereward can afford a mailshirt!<br>
<br>
In short: economic chaos! The Clades Variana must have been an evil Roman plot to destabilise the economy of the Barbaricum all along! <p></p><i></i>

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

<br>
BTW, a question: Goettingen is today famous for its hi-tech and design knives factories. Do anyone knows if this tradition derive from a roman weapons fabrica settled there, or from a previous tradition of german blades makers, or did it started there in the Middle Age?<br>
<br>
Valete,<br>
Titus <p></p><i></i>

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

<br>
<br>
OOOPS! Forget it! I was wrong it's not Gottingen, it's Solingen! Excuse my old designer's neurons...<br>
<br>
Valete,<br>
Titus <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

A few remarks, first about the information industry and how news travel nowadays.<br>
The first bit of news was published by DPA, the German wire service. It was picked up by the AFP bureau in Berlin, translated and put on AFP wires.<br>
It was also picked up by UPI, AP and Reuters, of course.<br>
That's where I saw it. Since I was busy then I only wrote a brief summary of the story and posted it.<br>
Then the whole original DPA story was posted --with a pretty decent translation, I've seen worse, professionnally...<br>
In short, it is still the one and only original DPA story.<br>
Conclusion: we don't know much about this site besides the fact that it's there and that artefacts were found, tentatively attributed to the last years BC.<br>
Apparently, decorated axes were found. It could be dolabrae with decorated blade protections --there's one in the Guttmann collection-- or it could be lictors' axes.. That would be more interesting. I'll wait for the pictures.<br>
That camp was not hidden. I'm pretty sure the locals knew where it was since the story also says that the remnants of the fossa et vallum were still visible.<br>
As is often the case, BTW.<br>
So the site was not hidden but ignored by the archaeological community. That's different. That means looting may have been going on for some time. Apparently it did since the local archaeologist was alerted by rumours concerning numerous finds of coins.<br>
Hopefully now we'll be able to know what happened to the camp, to what campaign it can be linked with and so on. But this takes time. The coins will give us an approximative date and maybe more if, like at Kalkriese, some are found with a particular mark --like Varus' mark-- stamped on them.<br>
As for Kalkriese... Some would love to see there the site of Varus' last stand, and some others disagree. But I suspect both of having ulterior motives on that and they have little to do with ancient history --emphasis on '"ancient"...<br>
Until now, the Varus story has been taken for granted by everybody and I still really wonder why.<br>
To me, it's like reconstructing Napoleon's russian campaign only from the official bulletins of the Grande Armée..<br>
We'd learn that "brigands" set fire to Moscow, after which the Grande Armée "lost many horses" but performed "a successful retreat"..<br>
Yeah, right..<br>
As far as accuracy goes, the Varus story sound a bit like the famous "five o'clock follies" of Vietnam fame...<br>
Fantasyland. The more I read it the more I feel that we don't have half of the story and maybe less than that.<br>
Ever since I discovered John Keegan, I tend to be very skeptical regarding official narratives of campaigns and battles.. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 4/8/04 12:14 pm<br></i>

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

<br>
Yes, skepticism keep us well sticked to the ground, in any matter, politics and religion too. The only chance is you all wait for my time-machine completion..., ...or maybe I've already completed it and never said that, letting you enjoy among great enthusiasms of discoveries and cruel delusions about the "real" understanding of the ancient (and more recent too) world. But seen that maybe I already know what the roman soldiers tunic color was, or who actually killed Iulianus, or..., and you not. What reward for my silence? Yes sirs, my silence, because history is like women, as ConalM told in another thread, if we'd know all, where the fun should be? If even new little discoverd details can change totally our vision of whole periods, and after all, something like... the myths could have a value very close to that of the official history<br>
( yeah, that's terrific! )<br>
<br>
Valete,<br>
Titus <p></p><i></i>

[Robert Vermaat]

"To me, it's like reconstructing Napoleon's russian campaign only from the official bulletins of the Grande Armée..<br>
We'd learn that "brigands" set fire to Moscow, after which the Grande Armée "lost many horses" but performed "a successful retreat"..<br>
Yeah, right..<br>
As far as accuracy goes, the Varus story sound a bit like the famous "five o'clock follies" of Vietnam fame...<br>
Fantasyland. The more I read it the more I feel that we don't have half of the story and maybe less than that."<br>
<br>
Antoninus,<br>
To stay in your Napoleonic example, only when in 2002 they found the buried remains of between 30 to 40.000 soldiers from the Grande Armee was it finally known how its demise occurred. Looking for the <em>bullets</em> would indeed be better than the <em>bulletins</em>!<br>
Remember Little Big Horn? We had only very vague reports and a big heroic tale of 'Custer's Last Stand' grew out of it. But then archaeologists had a good look, and from the bullets it was proven that the end was bloody chaos, never a heroic last effort.<br>
I really think that before Kalkriese, it was just that: taking the story for granted. Some author said Teutoburg Forest, so they put up a big statue. But now they found stuff, and that is the next guide.<br>
<br>
At Kalkriese, it is possibly 'bullets not bulletins'. I agree that Kalkriese was never 'Varus' last stand', for that never happened, no source says that it happened. Those who say that anyway and say it happened at Kalkriese, are wrong.<br>
If Kalkriese was part of the Clades Variana, and I still think it looks like that, it was the site of a major defeat, maybe the last point where the Roman force held any coherence. Maybe Varus killed himself before Kalkriese, maybe after.<br>
Anyway, one of the major flaws of Kalkriese is the missing 'last camp', where the Romans left and returned to (!) before the end.<br>
<br>
Valete,<br>
Valerius/Robert <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 4/8/04 2:51 pm<br></i>

[Vincula]

Quote:</em></strong><hr>The coins will give us an approximative date and maybe more if, like at Kalkriese, some are found with a particular mark --like Varus' mark-- stamped on them.<hr><br>
You people are obsessed with coins. Haven't you heard of ceramic evidence? <p></p><i></i>

[ghandi]

Yep, they found some pootery sherds and that could be equally interesting for dating Hedemünden camp. Either they look like Oberraden horizont or late Haltern horizon terra sigilata. And THEN coins come in again ! Linking these finds together will give a clearer picture then that from Kalkriese since there are very little pottery finds (mostly late pre-roman iron age, from a settlement on the battlefield. I think a saw one tiny sigilata sherd).<br>
<br>
At least the germans not only took the weapons away from Kalkriese (to destroy their own increasing metal industry) but also ugly sigilata situlae to mock their own pottery desingners. <br>
<br>
ghandi <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Pottery sherds are very useful --tiles stamps for instance-- but they are not as accurate as coins regarding precise datation. The coins found at Kalkriese bore the mark of Varus; that doesn't only gives an exact date but also confirms the texts saying that at that time there was a general called Varus in command there. <p></p><i></i>

[ghandi]

Having coins on an archaeological site is, at first, a great helpfor dating the site. Having stamp marks on roman coins is sensational, at first. Now Problems begin: How exactly are the dates of the coins, what about coin drift and is it or is it not VAR (C.Val, IMP, AVG etc. BTW: Did you know that the youngest roman coin from Kalkriese dates into 3rd ct. AD and the oldest is of republican times? ).<br>
Dirty, crunchy ceramic sherds are the main archeological object to date prehistoric early historic and even medieval sites.<br>
<br>
ghandi <p></p><i></i>