Overview

This Roman farm is located within the Koblenz City Forrest was first mentioned around 1900, when parts of it may have still been quite visible.  But systematic excavations did not start until 1991, when the City of Koblenz collaborated with the State Department of Archaeology to study the remnants of this classic Villa Rustica style farm.

Location

+50° 17' 57.84", +7° 34' 32.10", Elevation 214 m above sea level

Description

The property is oriented from north-west towards southeast and was surrounded by an encirclement wall.  The rectangular area stretches along a slightly south sloping area and orientated towards a valley.  This form of the agricultural operations is frequently found in the area of Rhine and Moselle.  Although farms may differ in equipment, extension and the type of use, they all have a similar construction pattern: the residential building is located in the upper third of the enclosed of area.  Behind this building one typically finds the orchard and vegetable garden.  In front of it towards the South, there is a wide court area in which single economic buildings, like draws, barns, workshops are arranged in such a way that they are useful for the daily operation. In between these buildings within the enclosure there are open areas for small animals, aviaries for the poultry breeding and similar installations.  The rectangular form of these farms was fitted into the surrounding agricultural area. With the Roman conquest and the development of novel farming techniques, this region was systematically assessed for the first time and was subdivided into regular plots (Limitation).  A surface of about 200 acres belonged to an average court of this scale. The grain that was grown during the Roman time was predominantly Emmer, Einkorn, spelt, barley, oat and rye.

Context

There always have been and connecting traffic ways along which preferentially transports were carried out already even during prehistoric times. Nevertheless, only when Roman engineers and their road builders arrived in the Rhine area, systematic road building and construction began.   It is likely that the main routes towards distant connections existed already.  The Romans basically took these connections over and brought systematic innovation to this regions.  For example, they deliberately removed the underlying subsoil, the planed the road, provided pavement and started to build bridges in in humid regions and across rivers.

The mountainous regions surrounding Rhine and Moselle did not lend itself to the usual straight directions of major roadways that were common in other Roman provinces as well as the uniform parcellation of surrounding areas.  Thus, the single individual parts were adapted more to the local circumstances.  However, today one can only rarely find Roman field borders, field margins and directional signs in the area.

Interestingly, there was no forest along the ridge of the extension of the Hunsrück between the Rhine and the Moselle during Roman time.  This lead to considerable erosion which interfered and deteriorated the economic efficiency of this region already at the beginning of the 3^rd century AD.  This may have contributed to the fact that these agricultural operations were given up by the middle of 3^rd century and were abandoned shortly thereafter.  It is only since the Middle Ages that one would find timber forest again.

Speculation

References