News from the ancient past

Imagine this: some poor peasants digging a 12 feet hole aiming at sinking a well accidentally knock against a brick floor and afterwards find the famous and huge terracotta army of an ancient Emperor. This happened by chance in China in 1974. When I was there in 2002, I saw one of the finders sitting in the lobby of the museum that has been set up there. He actually was celebrated like a rock star. Why not? He is one of the men who brought tourism and money into the region of Xian! Last fall, there was a digging expedition in Central Burgenland. Experts from the Austrian Archeological Institute tried to find the presumed gap between the ancient Roman camps of Scarbantia (today the city of Sopron/Ödenburg) and Savaria (now the city of Szombathely/ Steinamanger). The ancient Romans usually built at least small camps in a 25 kilometres distance (which is about 14 miles), because they supposed that this would be the distance a big group of men and horses could manage to walk with all the equipment in one daylight time (note: shelters for oriental caravans were built in almost the same distance as well!). And the diggers were really successful in Burgenland: they found three military camps in Strebersdorf, community of Lutzmannsburg. These camps apparently had been giving shelter to an ancient Roman cavalry unit („ala Pannoniorum”). The equestrians protected the camps and the amber road and controlled the Roman province of Pannonia in this region. Besides this, they observed the mining of the mineral resources, for great amounts of iron-ore were to be found there; an important material to produce weapons in that time. People even used blast-furnaces and melted metal. These three military camps are the only ones in Burgenland - but they are very interesting for a lot of people. After about 2000 ancient coins had been saved, some adventurers came with their metal detectors. But they were unlucky, when the whole area was immediately observed by Austrian military forces. In the meantime, the excavation is finished. In fact, the military camps are very close to the ancient amber road („Bernsteinstraße“). This road connected the Roman harbor of Aquileia (North Italy) to the nowadays Polish regions at the Baltic Sea. The amber road was like a highway through Central Europe, used by soldiers for transporting animals and equipment. First of all amber, an ancient precious stone, had to be brought to Italy to adorn Roman upper class women´s necks and wrists. The amber road today passes the modern towns of Purbach, St. Margarethen and Frankenau, exactly 32 kilometres in the Seewinkel and 24 kilometres east of Oberpullendorf. If you come to Burgenland, visit this area of Oberpullendorf and walk the amber road. The “Verein zur Erhaltung der Römerstraße im Burgenland” (a society for the purpose of saving the Roman road in Burgenland) is very busy. Notice boards were put up along the road and some parts can also be biked. If you are interested, see http://www.borg-op.asn-bgld.ac.at/VereinRoemischeBernsteinstrasse . A window to the past can be opened. Mag. Walter Dujmovits jun.

top of page

---

Burgenlaendische Gemeinschaft  1-3 2010 Nr.413

Newsletter archive