Oppidum of Bibracte

 

 

Plan of the fortifications of the oppidum of Bibracte. The grey area represents land over 700 m in elevation.

Bibracte was a Gaulish oppidum which, according to Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (‘Gallic War’) 1.23, was the capital of the Gaulish tribe known as the Aedui. It is located on Mont-Beuvray near Autun in Burgundy (south-east France). The oppidum covers 2 km2 and extends over three summits which overlook the central part of the Morvan mountains. Its prominent position dominating its landscape must have been even more impressive in antiquity since the mountain top would have been bare and enclosed by massive ramparts.

Many of the gates of Bibracte were constructed primarily for processional purposes, in which function was subordinate to appearance. For example, the northeastern gate, now called porte du rebout (gate of the limb), is the largest example of a gate in any Celtic oppidum yet excavated.

Bibracte was subdivided into several areas or quarters given over to specific activities and social classes. The quarters in the north-east and south-west were reserved for artisans and commerce respectively. The central residential quarter contained many elaborate houses partly imitating the Roman urban house-type with a central open area (atrium) and a garden enclosed by a small colonnade (peristyle; the so-called parc aux chevaux). Each quarter seems to have had a cult site or a temple (see map).

The artisans’ quarters show evidence of elaborate metallurgy, including gold, bronze, and iron working, as well as enamel production. The internal street-plan was comparatively regular in so far as the lay of the land allowed. It was dominated by a south-to-west axis, centred on a convex basin, whose orientation towards the summer and winter solstice implies a cult significance.

The ritual precincts were located in the south (la terrasse, the terrace), the north-west (le teureau de la roche, hill of the rock) and the north-east (le teureau de la wivre, hill of the serpent; these are dialect words: teureau, as theurot, from Gaulish *turra ‘hill’, and wivre, as vouivre, from Latin vipera, Old French vuivre ‘serpent’, cf. Welsh gwiber). In these locations the ritual area have been sited by prominent rocks, which seem to have played a part in the cult. At the site of the terasse a small chapel was built in the Middle Ages.

Three wells were located within the fortified perimeter of Bibracte, and there is evidence for ritual depositions in them, which implies the presence of the commonly occurring Celtic cult of spring deities. Pre-Roman coinage was found inside the walls. Bibracte was a mint, and a coin mould for casting 25 blanks was found on the site (Allen, Coins of the Ancient Celts 34). The name DUMNORIX, which is mentioned in Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, and possibly his portrait, has been found on one of the coins from Bibracte. In Roman times, the population of Bibracte relocated to the newly founded town of Augustodūnum, present-day Autun. The name Bibracte has been explained as a Celtic collective in –axtā based on the root bibr- ‘beaver’, hence ‘place of beavers’ (Lambert, La langue gauloise 59, 188– 9). Modern Mont-Beuvray continues the ancient name.

CONTINENTAL CELTIC FORTIFICATION

Excavation of the fortifications in the western precinct of the oppidum at Staré Hradisko, Czech Republic, in 1990

Introduction

Iron Age fortifications, like those of other periods, are best understood as directly related to a given society’s battle techniques/traditions. This is the common-sense view and was, until recently, the usual archaeological interpretation, since it is clear that innovations in weapons technology have often given rise to basic changes in the development of defensive earthworks. However, experts now increasingly recognize ancient fortifications also as important cultural statements which define group identity and status. Thus, each defensive structure must be viewed in its social and economic context, since it may have served as a demarcation of ethnic, economic, political, social, or territorial boundaries, but might have alternatively or also stood as a marker of power and prestige. Advanced types of composite ramparts, such as the murus gallicus (see below), together with their often imposing gateway constructions, must be viewed as monumental elements of the Celtic hill-fort or oppidum.

The majority of fortifications date from the later Hallstatt period (c. 700–c. 475 bc) and Earlier and Later La Tène (c. 475 bc until Romanization). Continuous settlement at such sites was rare (e.g. Závist in the Czech Republic, see Boii), with a hiatus often occurring during the Middle La Tène period (c. 350–c. 200 bc).

Late Hallstatt and Early La Tène fortifications rarely exceed 30–40 ha (72–100 acres) and are mostly situated on naturally protected high plateaux. Defensive circuits of ramparts on islands and plateaux, as well as promontory sites partially defended by natural features (such as the sea or sheer cliffs), and the more typical hill-forts with single or multiple rings of defences have been discovered.

Rampart Types

Besides simple earthen ‘dump’ ramparts and dry-stone walls, other techniques of defensive construction attested at late prehistoric sites include simple wattleand- daub structures with palisaded walls and wooden box-type constructions, such as that found at Biskupin in Poland. By the Iron Age, more advanced methods of defensive construction had developed. The clay brick construction employed at the Heuneburg with its bastions is unique and does not seem to have been of great influence. It appears to have been an imitation of such techniques in use in the classical world, and will not be dealt with here. The main construction methods employed on Continental and southern British hill-forts and oppida are outlined below:

(1) The Altkönig-Preist type rampart was constructed of vertical wooden posts inserted in a drystone wall. These vertical timbers were exposed in the outer face of the rampart and, less often, in the inner face. The posts were earth-bound or supported on stone slabs positioned about 1–3 m apart. The thickness of the rampart varied between 3.5 m and 6 m. One variation of this method was the use of horizontal wooden beams, arranged lengthwise and crosswise, to link the vertical posts, with the space in between filled with a mixture of stone and soil. This type was prevalent in a region stretching approximately from the northern edge of the Alps in the south to Luxembourg in the north.

(2) The Kelheim-type rampart was a vertical post and stone panel-work arrangement, similar to the Altkönig-Preist type, but much simplified, with only one layer of horizontal beams anchored into the earthen rampart. In this form of rampart the inner face was often ramped gradually down to the ground level of the interior. This construction technique was mostly utilized in the eastern part of the La Téne cultural area.

(3) The Ehrang-type rampart was constructed of horizontal beams arranged lengthwise and crosswise and anchored to a stone wall which formed the defensive exterior, with the ends of the beams running crosswise through the rampart, visible in its outer face. The dry-stone facing of the outer walls was generally only a course or two thick and could not have survived any length of time without the timber-laced backing of earth.

(4) The murus gallicus technique described in Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (‘Gallic War’) is a variant of the latter Ehrang type. In this type, the lengthwise and crosswise beams were fixed together at the point where they passed over one another by using large iron spikes. The bulk of the rampart was filled in with rammed soil and, as with the Kelheim-type rampart, the inner face was often ramped gradually down to the ground level of the interior. This type was first noted by Caesar at the siege of Avaricum in 52 bc and appears to have been popular in western Gaul. In this case, the deep ditch, which often lay immediately outside the rampart, sometimes possessed a near vertical inner edge, which was combined with the outer face of the rampart to form a sheer obstacle several metres high. Modern estimates based on excavated examples suggest that up to 700 man-hours may have been required for the construction of each metre length of such ramparts. Several other variants on timber-laced ramparts composed of stone and earth—such as the Kastenbau type, the Fécamp type and the Basel-Münsterberg type—have also been identified by archaeologists.

Gateways

Besides simple entrance gaps in the walls accompanied by short passageways, several more elaborate gateway layouts are known. The typical gate was the zangentor, the pincer-gate, in which the gate passage narrowed towards the inside. The passageway, which frequently assumed a funnel shape, often had two lanes and was secured by a gatehouse (e.g. Závist, Bohemia, and Manching, Bavaria) or a gate tower (e.g. La Chaussée- Tirancourt, France). Otherwise, towers are rather rare. At their entrance point, gates could be as wide as 15 m (e.g. Bibracte, France; Titelberg, Luxembourg), but there were also very narrow passages with a width of only about 2.5 m (e.g. Kelheim, Bavaria). At several sites the entrance way featured extra walls or ‘hornworks’, which extended outwards from the main defences at a right angle near the gateway, thereby extending the passageway to the entrance considerably and, as a result, the exposure time of attackers to the efforts of the defenders (e.g. Danebury, Dorset).

Further reading

Bibracte; Boii; Caesar; Danebury; Gaul; Hallstatt; Heuneburg; Iron Age; Kelheim; La Tène; Manching; oppidum; Titelberg; Buchsenschutz et al., Les remparts de Bibracte; Collis, Celtic World 159–75; Collis, Defended Sites of the Late La Tène in Central and Western Europe; Collis, Oppida; Dehn, Celticum 3.329–86; Dehn, Germania 38.43–55, 47.165–8; Fichtl, La ville celtique; Furger-Gunti, Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte 63.131–84; Guichard et al., Les processus d’urbanisation à l’Âge du fer; Harding, Hillforts; Leicht, Die Wallanlagen des Oppidums Alkimoennis/Kelheim; Metzler, Das treverische Oppidum auf dem Titelberg; Meylan, Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 20.388–91; Moor, Spätkeltische Zeit am südlichen Oberrhein 22–8; Motyková et al., Archaeology in Bohemia 1986–1990 115–25; Ralston, Celtic World 59–81; Sievers, Manching; Urban, Der lange Weg zur Geschichte 332–68.

ALESIA

The town, which was called Alisiia by its inhabitants, has been identified with modern Alise St Reine.

Alesia was the capital of the Mandubii, one of the Gaulish tribes allied with the mighty Aedui, and after Julius Caesar's conquest a Roman town (Oppidum) in Gaul. There have been archeological excavations since the time of Napoléon III in Alise-Sainte-Reine in Côte d'Or near Dijon, which have claimed that the historical Alesia is located there. New discoveries are constantly being made about this Gallo-Roman settlement on the plateau of Mont-Auxois. As a result of the latest excavation, a find was presented to the museum there with the inscription: IN ALISIIA, which finally dispelled the doubts of some archeologists on the town's identity.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE CELTIBERIANS

The oppidum of Los Cogotas, Avila, Spain, is one of the better-known defended settlements of the Celtiberian region of Spain. It has been extensively excavated as the result of which the arrangement of the interior buildings has been identified in outline allowing this artist's reconstruction to be offered.

The defences of Los Cogotas enclose in total some 14.5 hectares but only the upper enclosure was intensively occupied. Though large, it is by no means the largest of the oppida in the Ambles Valley as the lower plans will demonstrate.

The homeland of the Celtiberians lay in the north-eastern part of Iberia stretching from the southern flank of the Ebro Valley to the Eastern Meseta. To the north lay the territory of the Urnfield culture, to the west the loosely linked communities of the Atlantic Bronze Age, while to the east and south, along the Mediterranean fringe, the distinctive Iberian culture was soon to emerge as contacts with the east Mediterranean states intensified. The Celtiberian zone therefore lay on three peripheries and inevitably benefited by absorbing cultural elements from all three.

The harshness of parts of the territory, particularly the plains of the Meseta, desiccated during the summer months, necessitated a degree of transhumance in the pastoral economy. The flocks and herds were taken to upland mountain pastures before the heat came and were brought down again in autumn. Such conditions allowed a gradual increase in population and led to the emergence of an elite reflected in a series of rich graves furnished with short swords, spears, and round shields, redolent of the warrior-based nature of society.

The principal burial rite was urned cremation, adopted from the Urnfield cultural zone to the north-east, but other elements came from the south and east, including geometric painted pottery, fibulae with two-part springs, and belt hooks, all characteristic of Tartessian culture. The short antennae-hilted iron sword was, however, a development specific to the north, extending, with regional variations' over the Celtiberian area and the Ebro Valley, and across the Pyrenees into Languedoc and Aquitania.

From the sixth century Bc the influence of stimuli from the cultures of the Mediterranean littoral and the developing Iberian hinterland intensified. By the fourth century the Celtiberians were using rotary querns and the potter's wheel. Celtiberian script, derived from Iberian, was in use by the third century, and large oppida-like settlements-again probably an Iberian inspiration-began to develop at about the same time or a little later.

To what extent Celtiberian culture received significant influences from the La Tene cultural zone it is difficult to say. A scatter of La Tene artefacts have been found in Iberia, most notably the collection of third-century weapons from the burial at Quintana de Gormaz, which included a scabbard decorated with dragonpairs. This array of material shows that contacts existed with communities north of the Pyrenees, but it need not imply anything more than processes of gift exchange. Nor does the adoption of the tore as an item of prestige display mean more than a sharing of belief or value systems. The silver torcs of the Meseta and the gold torcs of the north-west are distinctively Celtiberian in style, as are the widely distributed horse-and-rider fibulae.

The possibility that groups of La Tene Celts may have moved south into Celtiberian lands, as raiders, settlers, or mercenaries, cannot, however, be ruled out. Celtic war bands may have attached themselves to the incursion of the Cimbri in 104 BC and Caesar specifically mentions the arrival in Lerida, in 49 BC, of 6,000 Gauls, including Gallic cavalry, Ruthenian archers, and their families. The contribution of these and other possible intruders to Celtiberian culture seems to have been minimal.

KELHEIM OPPIDUM

Kelheim, a city with a population of about fifteen thousand, is situated at the confluence of the Altmühl River into the Danube in Lower Bavaria, Germany. In and around Kelheim are an unusual number of archaeological sites from the Palaeolithic to the modern day. Particularly important remains date from the Late Bronze Age (a large cemetery of cremation burials) and the Late Iron Age. From about the middle of the second century until the middle of the first century B.C., Kelheim was the site of an oppidum, a large, walled settlement of the final period of the prehistoric Iron Age, before the Roman conquest of much of temperate Europe. Just west of the medieval and modern town center is the site of the Late Iron Age complex, set on a triangular piece of land bounded by the Altmühl River on the north, the Danube in the southeast, and a wall 3.28 kilometers long along its western edge, cutting the promontory off from the land to the west. The area enclosed by this wall and the two rivers is about 600 hectares, 90 percent of which is on top of the limestone plateau known as the Michelsberg and 10 percent of which lies in the valley of the Altmühl, between the steep slope of the Michelsberg and the southern bank of the river. Some investigators believe that the settlement that occupied this site was one referred to as “Alkimoennis” by the Greek geographer Ptolemy.

Numerous archaeological excavations have been carried out on sections of the walls, on iron mining pits on the Michelsberg, and on limited portions of the enclosed land. The western wall, an inner wall 930 meters in length, and a wall along the south bank of the Danube that is 3.3 kilometers in length were constructed in similar ways. Tree trunks about 60 centimeters in diameter were sunk into the ground at intervals of 2 meters or less, and between the trunks the wall front was constructed of limestone slabs to a height of 5 to 6 meters. An earth ramp behind the wall held the stone facing in place and provided access to the top for defenders. Estimates suggest that more than eight thousand trees were felled, some twenty-five thousand cubic meters of limestone were quarried and cut for the wall front, and four hundred thousand cubic meters of earth were piled up for the embankment, representing a substantial amount of labor as well as a significant environmental impact on the surrounding forest.

On the Michelsberg plateau, both within the enclosed area and beyond the western wall, some six thousand pits have been identified from their partially filled remains visible on the surface. Excavations of a few reveal that they are mining pits, cut into the limestone to reach layers of limonite iron ore. Some are of Late Iron Age date and are associated with the oppidum occupation; others are medieval. Remains of smelting furnaces near some of the pits have been studied. The principal evidence for the settlement has been found below the Michelsberg plateau, between it and the Altmühl on a part of the site known as the Mitterfeld. Limited excavations on top of the Michelsberg have failed to uncover any extensive settlement remains, but on the Mitterfeld are abundant materials from the Late Iron Age occupation. They are densest in the eastern part of the Mitterfeld and thin out toward the west. Postholes, storage pits, wells, and chunks of wall plaster indicate a typical settlement of the Late La Tène culture, comparable to the site of Manching 36 kilometers up the Danube.

Pieces of ore, slag, and furnace bottoms occur over much of the settlement, attesting to the importance of iron production. Iron tools and ornaments were manufactured on the site, bronze was cast, and glass ornaments made. Tools recovered include axes, anvils, chisels, awls, nails, clamps, hooks, needles, pins, and keys. Vessels, brooches, and spearheads also were made of iron. Bronze ornaments include brooches, rings, pendants, pins, and several figural ornaments, including a small, finely crafted head of a vulture.

The pottery assemblage is typical of the major oppidum settlements. Most of the pots were made on a potter’s wheel, and they include fine painted wares, well-made tableware, thick-walled cooking pots of a graphite-clay mix, and large, coarse-walled storage vessels. Spindle whorls attest to textile production by the community. Lumps of unshaped glass indicate local manufacture of beads and bracelets. A number of bronze and silver coins have been recovered, along with a mold in which blanks were cast. All of this production of iron and manufacture of goods was based on a solid subsistence economy of agriculture and livestock husbandry. Barley, spelt wheat, millet, and peas were among the principal crops, and pigs and cattle were the main livestock.

Like all of the major oppida, the community at Kelheim was actively involved in the commercial systems of Late Iron Age Europe. The quantities of iron produced by the mines and the abundant smelting and forging debris indicate specialized production for trade. The site’s situation at the confluence of two major rivers was ideal for commerce. The copper and tin that composed bronze had to be brought in, as did the raw glass and the graphite clay used for cooking pots. Imports from the Roman world include a bronze wine jug, a fragmentary sieve, and an attachment in the form of a dolphin.

As at most of the oppida in Late Iron Age Europe, few graves have been found at Kelheim. Without burial evidence, population estimates are difficult to make, but an educated guess might put the size of Late Iron Age Kelheim at between five hundred and two thousand people. Landscape survey shows that when the oppidum at Kelheim was established during the second century B.C., people living on farms and in small villages in the vicinity abandoned their settlements and moved into the growing center, perhaps to take advantage of the defense system and for mutual protection. Around the middle of the first century B.C., the oppidum was abandoned, like many others east of the Rhine, for reasons and under conditions that are not yet well understood but are subjects of intensive ongoing research.

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Engelhardt, Bernd. Ausgrabungen am Main-Donau-Kanal. Buch am Erlbach, Germany: Verlag Maria Leidorf, 1987.

Pauli, Jutta. Die latènezeitliche Besiedlung des Kelheimer Beckens. Kallmünz, Germany: Verlag Michael Lassleben, 1993.

Rieckhoff, Sabine, and Jörg Biel. Die Kelten in Deutschland. Stuttgart, Germany: Konrad Theiss, 2001.

Rind, Michael M. Geschichte ans Licht gebracht: Archäologie im Landkreis Kelheim. Büchenbach, Germany: Verlag Dr. Faustus, 2000.

Wells, Peter S., ed. Settlement, Economy, and Cultural Change at the End of the European Iron Age: Excavations at Kelheim in Bavaria, 1987–1991. Ann Arbor, Mich.: International Monographs in Prehistory, 1993.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM

Lutetia (sometimes Lutetia Parisiorum or Lucotecia, in French Lutèce) was a town in pre-Roman and Roman Gaul. It was located on what is now the Île de la Cité, an island on the river Seine, in the centre of the modern city of Paris. It was the chief settlement (or oppidum) of the Parisii, a Celtic people who settled in the area during the 3rd century BC.

Most scholars believe that in 52 BC, at the time of Vercingetorix's struggle with Julius Caesar, a small Gallic tribe, the Parisii, were living on the island. It has also been said that a Roman by the name of Lutece founded the Île de la Cité which started as a fortress. At that time, the island was a low-lying area subject to flooding that offered a convenient place to cross the Seine and was also a refuge in times of invasion. However, some modern historians believe the Parisii were based on another, now sunken island. After the conquest of the Celts, the Roman Labienus created a temporary camp on the island, but further Roman settlement developed in the healthier air on the slopes above the Left Bank, at the Roman Lutetia. [1]

Lutetia Parisiorum (Paris) was a typical northern Gallic civitas-capital, with a population of about 7,500. It succeeded a Celtic oppidum located on the Ile de la Cité—an easily defended site which controlled an important route across the River Seine. However continuity of settlement was only assured when the Romans built a road which crossed the river at the same point. The main part of the Romano-Gallic city lay on the left bank. Its layout reflects the Gauls’ ready acceptance of Greco-Roman ideas of urbanisation. There was regular street planning, and lavish provision of public buildings for administration, entertainment and relaxation. To be noted are the central forum complex—which included an open area with surrounding portico, a great hall and temple—and the bath buildings. The city was unwalled, a tribute to secure conditions during the Principate. In true Roman fashion its cemeteries were placed beyond its sacred boundary. The later Roman and medieval cities retreated again to the island in the Seine.

[1] The meaning of name came from Latin: "Midwater-dwelling".