THE WATCHTOWER OF VISEGRÁD - LEPENCE

Transcription

1 PETER GRÓF - DANIEL GROH THE WATCHTOWER OF VISEGRÁD - LEPENCE Road construction works of highway no. 11 in the early 1980s revealed but unfortunately also partly destroyed the ruins of a Roman watchtower on the Danube side of the road, opposite the entrance of the Visegrád-Lepence thermal baths. The exact circum stances of the finding remained unknown even for the archaeologist, since the new highway was built partly above the site. In the autumn of 1994 the walls of this rectangular burgus with four internal pillars were unearthed,' and between 1994 and 1997 the long time sought remains of the Late Roman watchtower of Lepence were finally excavated.2 The entrance of the burgus (an 18,3 x 18,3 m rec tangle, with 170 cm thick walls) was on the north-western side, looking to the Danube. Next to the inner north-eastern wall a staircase of three steps were built, with a possible wooden drawbridge. The excava tion of only two inner rectangular pillars with 150 cm deep foundation on their sides was possible out of the total four. The foundation at any other points of the walls is 120 cm deep. The fence walls around the bur gus were excavated 6 meters from the building itself in a small section and in bad condition, while 9 meters from this a small part of the fossa was unearthed. The ditch itself most likely had a V-shaped cross-section. On the western corner of the fence wall there were four pillar foundations, which corresponds to the watchtower representations shown on the Column of Traianus.3 In the homogeneous fallen masonry layer filling the middle of the burgus a black burning layer was observed confirming the systematic destruction of the watchtower by the Romans themselves. The findings from the building were nonsignificant, though the most interesting ones were bricks with stamps (Frigeridus dux, Terentius dux),,4 coins of Constantine I, Valentinian and Valens, and a couple of nails of vari ous sizes from the fallen roof of the building. As a unique find, we can mention the Gallineus -coin found here. The floor layer of the tower consisted of many heavily used layers. The cons traction work of the building was carried out with special care, which was also shown by the ruined walls unearthed earlier. They were built of stones of outstanding quality using the opus incertum technique, a high-standard one. The gaps between the stones were carefully filled in and then the mortar was smoothed. The corners were reinforced, with a pro truding skirting board on the outer sides. The founda tion ditch had an almost vertical wall, and the walls were rested on a few centimetres thick bed of gravel. The top of the walls having remained up to the height of cm was reinforced with horizontal wooden beams. The mark of these beams in the mortar, or their burnt signs in it were clearly visible during the exca vations, and were documented. In the north-western and north-eastern walls the signs of the scaffolding holes were detected. Outside the walls, approximately 2 meters in front of the entrance, in the debris layer of the fallen mason ry an inscribed plate of carved stone was found, iden tified as the construction inscription. The inscription of the plate runs as follows: Iudicio principali DDD(ominorum)NNN(ostrorum) Valentiniani Valentis / et Gratiani rrincipum(sic!) maximorum dispositionem / etiam inluslris viri utiusque [miliiiaeje magistri eovi / ti comitis Foscianus p(rae)p(o situs) legiones primfae marjtiorum / una cum multibus sibi creditis hfunc burgjum a fun / damintis et construxit et ad sufmam manjum operis / consulatus Gratiano augusftjo bis [et Prjobo vim da / rissimo fecit pervenire Which translates as: To the order of our lords, Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, the greatest emperors, and to the command of comes equitum, one of the most outstanding men and chief commander of the army, Foscianus, the com mander of the legion no. 1 named after Mars, together with his subjects, the soldiers, executing the given command have built this watchtower from the founda tions to the very last touch at the second time of con sulship of our divine emperor Gratian and at the con sulship of the noble Probus. According to the consular list in / it turns out that the tower was built a year earlier than the watchtower at Visegrád-Kőbánya6 (which is situated approx imately 1 km from Lepence). The text almost exactly follows that of the plate found by Sándor Soproni at the excavation of the tower of Visegrád-Kőbánya,7 proving the building activity of the Leg IMartia in this area.8 However, the occasionally disordered letters and the differing sizes of the letters and lines suggest a hasty execution and an inexperienced worker. It is also interesting that the plate has two "handles" for fasten ing it up, that it is decorated with red stripes on white base and that at the top and at the bottom it has two wide channels carved into it. In the 230 cm wide entrance of the watchtower a threshold stone of two parts with a 60 cm deep foun dation was discovered. On the outer plate we can see two bushings holding the doorshaft, and openings for the wooden beams reinforcing the door itself. The 117

2 inner plate bears the curved abrasion marks of the door. Placing the bushing further in can be explained by the narrowing of the entrance, which also can be confirmed by a mortar arch on the inner threshold stone plate. There was no known military reason for this narrowing, and it is also questionable whether it could be connected with the subsequent placing of the construction inscription (Fig L). Around the plate in the debris three heads of statues were also found. All of them can be considered as fragments, since the necks were all broken. Therefore, it is hard to determine whether they belonged to a full-size statue or were busts only. The most important piece is the head of a lady of remarkable status (height: 25 cm). 9 It has earrings with small globular hanging pieces. Her hair is arranged nicely and fixed by a hair net, with a couple of locks combed onto her temples. The nose is damaged, and the way the eyes were carved gave the face a suggestive look. After a thorough examination it became clear that this head was worked over subsequently. There are well-discernible chisel-marks near the nose and by the upper lip, as if an effort had been made to give it a hard masculine, sovereign character by removing the earrings and by the subsequent chiselling. The second head is representing a younger man, carved out of a different material, and with an inferior technique. He has curly hair, high forehead, and lifelike ears. The head is evenly worn out in its entire surface (height 23 cm). The third statue is more problematic. This is the lowest quality representation, showing a child with a fibula on his right shoulder, bearing the mark of a hand on his left shoulder. Chisel marks on both sides of the statue show that the child's figure was chiselled off from a gravestone testifying that it might have been part of a burial monument. On all the three heads traces of mortar were observed around the edges of the faces. Therefore we assume that the statue heads were partly walled in, thus hiding the earrings of the female head, for instance (Fig 2 a-b.). This picture became clearer when the body of the first head, the female one was actually found by accident. In the Aquincum Museum in Budapest there is a female grave-statue found in Óbuda, at Szemlőhegy in The circumstances of realising that the head and the body match are described by Dániel Gróh, as follows: First I thought that according to the similar sizes the two parts might be identical. Then, while the statue was still in the show-case of the museum, I observed the similarities of the stone material and the line of the broken neck. According to my observations, it became quite sure that originally the two pieces were one, so I made an experiment. It was a moment of a lifetime for all those present when in March 1999 the two parts finally became one again (Fig 3.)\ n The explanation of the above described phenomena can be described like this: Those who (re)built the Visegrád watchtower to demonstrate their successful work, needed a construction inscription and three statue-heads, at least vaguely resembling the emperor and his co-emperors. They had the inscription written; they sent someone to find the heads; they then re-carved the first head most likely based on the portrait on a coin of Valentinian, and they put the inscription and the three heads into a mortar layer above the narrowed entrance. There are still several questions to be answered, such as the main reason for all these activities. A possibility can be the activity of the commander of the fort at Gizellamajor, 1,5 km from the watchtower; and a possible visit or news about the visit of Valentinian or some other high-ranking person to the region. But, as we do not have written evidence about anything like this, we cannot pursue our deductions any further at the moment. 1. GRÓF-GRÓH GRÓH-GRÓF ; GRÓF-GRÓH 2000, u. p. 3. STEHLIN1957. Taf LŐRINCZ DEGRASSI, SOPRONI NOTES 7. SOPRONI SOPRONI u. p. 9. KAISERZEITLICHE PORTRÄTS KUZSINSZKY ; GRÓH

3 BIBLIOGRAPHY DEGRASSI 1952 = DEGRASSI: Fasti Consolari. Roma, GRÓF-GRÓH 1995 = GRÓF P.- GRÓH D.: Római építészeti emlékek Visegrád térségében. Műemlékvédelem 39. (1995), p GRÓF-GRÓH 2000 = GRÓF P. - GRÓH D.: Későrómai őrtorony és szoborlelet Visegrád-Lepencén. Fol Arch u. p. GRÓH 1999 = GRÓH D.: Császárkori portrék Aquincumból. Múzeumi Hírlevél 20. évf. 5. sz. (1999, június), p GRÓH-GRÓF 1996 = GRÓH D.- GRÓF P.: A visegrád-lepencei őrtorony és a későrómai szoborlelet. S avaria 22. ( ) [1996], p KAISERZEITLICHE PORTRÄTS = KAISERZEITLICHE PORTRÄTS IN AQUINCUM. Katalog der Ausstellung Bp., Internationales Kolloquium über Probleme des Provinzialrömischen Kunstschaffens: Mai. Red: P. Zsidi. Bp KUZSINSZKY 1906 = KUZSINSZKY B.: Az Aquincumi Múzeum kőemlékeinek negyedik sorozata. BudRég 9. (1906), p LŐRINCZ 1999 = LŐRINCZ B.: A későrómai hídfőállások bélyeges téglái Valériában. In: Pannóniai Kutatások. A Soproni Sándor emlékkonferencia előadásai, Bölcske. Szekszárd, p SOPRONI 1968 = SOPRONI S.: Der spätrömische Limes zwischen Esztergom und Szentendre. Bp SOPRONI 1999 = Studia in memóriám Sándor Soproni. Szerk.: Fehér Bence, Kovács Péter. Szekszárd, STEHLIN 1957 = STEHLIN, K.: Die spätrömische Wachtürme am Rhein von Basel bis zum Bodensee. Basel,

4 Fig. 1. The entrance of the watchtower from NW Fig. 2 a-h. The head of the lady with mortartraces

5 Fig. 3. The head oflepence on the figure's copy 121