Excavations have been ongoing since the beginning of the year at the Roman fort of Altenburger Steige in Bad Cannstatt, the oldest area in the city of Stuttgart, under the supervision of experts from the State Office for Monument Preservation (LAD) of the Stuttgart Regional Council.
The archaeologists are investigating the expansion works of the municipal school of Altenburg, at a site where, during Roman times, between 100 and 150 AD, there was initially a fort for a cavalry unit, followed by an extensive civilian settlement until around 260 AD.
During the excavations, a stone figurine of a Roman deity was found, which might be related to discoveries made more than 100 years ago.
A rather unremarkable sandstone, smeared with mud, caught the attention of an employee of the company ArchaeoBW, which is conducting the work. Upon closer inspection and an initial cleaning, the find turned out to be a 30-centimeter-high kneeling figure with a human head.
Despite the erosion of the stone, you can still see how its arms rest on the sides of the upper body and its hands on the hips and legs. However, the latter do not have a human shape, instead merging into a kind of snake body.
The chief archaeologist of the LAD, Dr. Andreas Thiel, explained: The figure is a hybrid creature from the Roman-Germanic world of gods, a ‘giant.’ As comparable finds show, the figure was part of a Jupiter-Giant column. These monuments combine classical antiquity with presumably Germanic beliefs: The thunderbolt-wielding Jupiter rides his horse over a crouching figure on the ground, usually naked and bearded, as can be seen, for example, in a group from Hausen an der Zaber, in the Heilbronn district.
However, the figure beneath the horse is often depicted in a pose that seems to hold up the horse. These groups of figures topped tall stone pillars erected in public squares. It is presumed that Jupiter is represented here as the god of weather and lord of the forces of nature, Thiel says.
In addition to its scientific significance, the new finding has another aspect of great interest, according to Thiel: Every archaeologist is delighted when a beautiful find is made. Every excavation in Hallschlag uncovers pieces of the puzzle of the Roman past of the state’s capital. In this case, we are fortunate that our giant fits with other finds that came to light in Bad Cannstatt more than a hundred years ago.
Dr. Astrid Fendt, head of the Department of Archaeology and responsible for Classical and Provincial Roman Archaeology at the State Museum of Württemberg in Stuttgart, said: We have many finds from Roman Bad Cannstatt in our depot. When we heard about the new discovery, we immediately thought of another part of a Jupiter-Giant column: its base used to include the so-called stone of the four gods. In the State Museum of Württemberg’s depot, there’s a heavily damaged stone of the four gods with representations of the Roman gods Mercury, Juno, Hercules, and Minerva.
Andreas Thiel of LAD added: This four-god stone comes from a well (which was at the edge of the currently excavated area) and was found during the excavations of 1908. The modest giant could have also been there, but it likely escaped the attention of our colleagues from back then, which isn’t surprising if you imagine the stone still dirty.
In short, it is quite fortunate that the newly found giant can be linked to a fragment that has been stored in the State Museum of Württemberg’s depot for a long time.
This allows for the reconstruction of a Jupiter-Giant column that once stood in a significant crossroads area in the Roman settlement of Bad Cannstatt. For archaeologists, this is another piece of the puzzle of Stuttgart’s rich Roman past.
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