An Analysis of the Schönbühl-Temple at Augusta Raurica, Basel, Switzerland

An analysis of the Schönbühl-Temple at Augusta Raurica, Basel, Switzerland List of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 2 A description of the archaeological site ....................................................................................... 2 A discussion of previous excavations and interpretations ........................................................... 6 K. Stehlin .................................................................................................................................. 6 R. Laur-Belart .......................................................................................................................... 9 Later interpretations ............................................................................................................... 11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 12 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 13 List of Figures Figure 1. The topography of the temple. ...................................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Stairs leading to the podium, view from theatre. ......................................................... 4 Figure 3. The podium, front view. ................................................................................................ 5 Figure 4. Top of the podium with reconstructed cella. ................................................................ 5 Figure 5. The Celtic square temples next to the podium. ............................................................ 6 Figure 6. The Excavation plan of K. Stehlin’s excavation from 1917-1929. ................................. 7 Figure 7. The podium of the temple of Schönbühl. ...................................................................... 8 Figure 8. The alignment of the classic buildings at Augusta Raurica. ......................................... 9 Figures 9 and 10. Reconstruction of the Schönbühl-temple. .................................................... 10 Figure 11. The frieze with the inscription “MERCVRIO AVGVSTO”, does it belong to the Schönbühl-temple? ............................................................................................................. 11 Figure 12. Key with lion-knob that could have opened the gate to the Schönbühl-hill. ............ 12 1/13 Introduction The Romans had a massive influence on the whole of Europe. Their military tac- tics, strong leaders and innovative social and cultural structures put them among the most successful civilisations in history. On of the strongest opponent of the late Ro- man Republic’s expansion politics were the peoples of Helvetii. The Helvetii was a Celtic tribe that Caesar himself feared for they were so fierce, ‘[they] were beyond doubt the strongest of all the Gallic peoples’ (Caesar 1998: 5). After the Helvetii’s defeat in 58 BC at the Battle of Bibracte the Romans started building their Coloniae in today’s Switzerland, including Colonia Raurica, later Augusta Raurica, most probably as a means of controlling the Celtic tribes (Rossel 1998: 19). Augusta Raurica saw different construction phases and evolved from a mainly wood-constructed city into a city with classic-Roman buildings with stone foundations and wall paintings, including structures such as a massive forum, a theatre, an amphi- theatre and several temples (Aitken 2007: 7). One of the temples, the Schönbühl- temple, is of great interest as there is a visible continuation of a religious space from a Celtic to a Roman or syncretised cult in the mid-1st century. This paper will first describe the remains of the Schönbühl-temple, its topography and location as well its characteristics and history. It will then summarise and an- alyse previous archaeological excavations. The aim is to explore how the archaeology carried out over the last centuries has been interpreted and how important the results are in a wider context. A description of the archaeological site It becomes quite obvious that the location of this temple was not randomly cho- sen. The temple was built on one of the highest hills in the area of Augusta Raurica and could be seen from a distance. The hill must have been treeless at least from the mid-1st century on as the monument covered almost the whole area, i.e. until the site was completely abandoned in the 7th century AD. Augusta Raurica is located on the border of today’s Germany and France, where the Rhine poses a physical boundary. From the top of the hill the lower Rhine plane is clearly visible. Figure 1 shows the topography of the temple, pointing out the steep hill. 2/13 Figure 1. The topography of the temple. (Source: Martin 1987: I) The entire classic temple structure had a perimeter of roughly 180 m and was 2,000 sqm large. The temple podium, the only visible remains today, is 3.5 m high, ca. 330 sqm large, i.e. 22x15 m. The temple was once surrounded by an open, double porticus. There was a large stair (ca. 15 m wide and 20 m long) leading to the theatre on the opposite site of the temple. The hill is larger to the north side and is slightly lowering towards the south. Da- ting back to the Celtic temples was a retaining wall along the natural bank of the hill. Also from this period is a transverse wall that enclosed the six temples from that time; the interior area was covered by an artificial chalk floor. The later classic temple was built regardless of the shape of the hill: the north corner of the porticus had to be sup- ported by walls and pillars projecting the hill. (Laur-Belart 1978: 79-84) There are two traceable building phases for the temple site. The first use of the site dates back to after the defeat of the Helvetii, when a Celtic cult established there in the early 1st century AD. Two of the square temples are still visible today, right next to the classic temple foundations. The other four square temples were built over by the 3/13 Romans when the Classic temple, after Vitruvius’ guidelines 1:2 for the size of the temple, was erected. This second phase is dated to the mid-1st century, when many wooden structures in the Colonia were replaced by stone buildings. To whom the temple was dedicated, however, has not been found out. The Schönbühl temple has undergone many excavations. The first excavation took place from 1550-1603 and was undertaken by A. Ryff, he was the first one to men- tion the building on the Schönbühl-hill. From 1838-1843 J.J. Schmid is the first one to identify the remains as a temple structure with a porticus. In 1892 T. Burckhardt- Biedermann excavated and measured the whole structure and proposed a first date for the temple. The probably most important excavation was carried out by K. Stehlin from 1917-1929, thanks to him the previous excavations and finds were recorded for later study. Finally R. Laur-Belart excavated the rest of the site in 1933, which involved later reconstruction of the temple site. Figure 2. Stairs leading to the podium, view from theatre. (source: photo by author) 4/13 Figure 3. The podium, front view. (source: photo by author) Figure 4. Top of the podium with reconstructed cella. (source: photo by author) 5/13 Figure 5. The Celtic square temples next to the podium. (source: photo by author) A discussion of previous excavations and interpretations The excavations before the 20th century were not very helpful in interpreting the temple of Schönbühl as they were focused on classical finds as was usual for the Re- naissance times. The more recent interpretations of the temple are based on all the above-mentioned excavations and are helpful to the reconstruction of the temple site. The excavations discussed here will be K. Stehlin’s from 1890-1934, R. Laur-Belart’s from 1933 as well as R.A. Stucky’s work summarised by R. Hänggi (1986), M. Martin’s interpretation from 1987 and the latest work by M. Trunk from 1991. K. Stehlin K. Stehlin extensively excavated the whole hill from 1890 to 1934. Figure 6 shows his excavation plan (black = excavated area, hatched = interpretation of structure that was not found). Stehlin is the first one to establish a link between the two building phases and how they overlap. As his excavation lasted for more than 40 years the ma- terial he published is numerous, therefore only his most important interpretations will be explored. In the late 19th century T. Burckhardt-Biedermann interpreted the temple as an ancient classic ante-temple due to the recesses (Figure 7) around the temple 6/13 foundation in which he believed the pillar foundations must have been placed. Stehlin, however, could demonstrate that these recesses were not used for pillar foundations but as foundations for the ashlars structure and that there were no pillars surrounding the Cella (inner sanctum) but pilasters and that these were standing on the podium rather than on foundation level. He contributed crucially to the reconstruction- drawings of the temple. (Hänggi 1986: 10-15) Figure 6. The Excavation plan of K. Stehlin’s excavation from 1917-1929. (Source: Laur-Belart 1978: 80) 7/13 Stehlin even managed to reconstruct the pillar bases by examining and measur- ing every find and step of the excavation. Moreover, he could reconstruct the different types of pillars used for the temple, the inner and outer porticus

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