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The Oppidum of Manching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Werner Krämer
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Extract

Only a few decades after the conquest of Gaul by Caesar the power of the free Celtic tribes in central Europe collapsed as a consequence of their finding themselves placed, during the course of the 1st century B.C., in an insecure position between the Romans and the Germans pressing down from the North. The victorious Alpine campaign of Drusus and Tiberius in 15 B.C. sealed the fate of, among others, the Vindelicians who occupied the south German area north of the Alps as far as the Danube. Here, still today, mighty hillforts bear witness to the power of those nameless Celtic chieftains who caused them to be erected. Contemporary literary sources tell all too little about the history of this area and about the cultural connections of its inhabitants before the Roman occupation. Therefore modern research relied upon Caesar’s description of the Gallic tribes in drawing parallels between the large late La Tène hillforts in central Europe and the city-like tribal centres of the Gauls in France, which Caesar called ‘oppida’ or even ‘urbes’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 135 , September 1960 , pp. 191 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1960

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References

1 P. Reinecke, ‘Spâtkeltische Oppida im rechtsrheinischen Bayern’, Der Bayerische Vorgeschichtsfreund, 9, 1930, pp. 29-52. J. Werner, ‘Die Bedeutung des Stãdtewesens für die Kulturentwicklung des frühen Keltentums’, Die Welt ah Geschichte, 5, 1939, 380-90.

2 K. Bittel, ‘Das keltische Oppidum bei Finsterlohr’, Jahrbuch Wiirttembergisch-Franken, New Series 24/25, 1949/SO, 69-86.

3 For the most important literature see W. Krämer, ‘Zu den Ausgrabungen in dem keltischen Oppidum von Manching 1955’, Germania, 35,1957, pp. 32-45, and ‘Manching, ein vindelikisches Oppidum an der Donau’, Neue Ausgrabungen in Deutschland (Berlin, 1958), 175-202.

4 Reinecke, Altertümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit, vol. 5, pl. 51.

5 K. H. Wagner, ‘Untersuchungen am Wall der spätkeltischen Stadt von Manching, Landkreis Ingolstadt’, Bayerische Vorgeschichtsblatter, 16, 1942, 10-20.

6 For murus Gallicus see W. Dehn, Germania, 38, 1960, 43-55.

7 Cf. M. Aylwin Cotton’s map in R. E. M. Wheeler and K. M. Richardson, Hill-Forts in Northern-France (London, 1957), 165, fig. 35, and K. Bittel, loc. cit.

8 The oppidum of Kelheim: Reinecke, 24/25. Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, 1934/35 (i937)> 167 f.

9 Up to now about 110,000 sherds were found and from these 335 pots could be reconstructed.

10 Cf. K. Castelin, ‘Keltische Münzformen aus Bohmen’, Germania, 38, i960, 32-42.

11 Krãmer, ‘Ein aufiergewõhnlicher Latènefund aus dem Oppidum von Manching’, Reinecke-Festschrift (Mainz, 1950), 84-95.

12 Reinecke, ‘Zur Geschichte und Topographie von Vallatum’, Sammelblatt des Historischen Vereins Ingohtadt, 59, 1950, 3-38.