Népsziget Noir

MAGYARUL

There was a period in the history of Budapest's Népsziget when industrial development overwhelmed it so much that it became the antithesis of the Danubian islands, and the irreversibly rusting socialist progress painted by Tamás Urbán and laconically described by Tamás Kátai left an indelible mark on the ruined, urbanised, grey landscape that had become a sociological segregate, where the eliminated green colour, together with the city dwellers longing for the Danube, is only cautiously venturing back from a few peripheral rowing facility relic areas to marvel once again at the sunlight dancing on the water, the pebbles, the windblown trees, and the scent of the cleansing Danube.

Rolling mills shape their bodies

From iron and steel a nation unfolds

From the past tomorrow takes hold

The hammer teaches you order and tolls

Lyrics and music: Tamás Kátai / Thy Catafalque : Vasgyár

Photo: Tamás Urbán / FORTEPAN

Bustletown Regensburg

MAGYARUL

Four hundred years ago, Hans Georg Bahre, a renown engraver from Regensburg created the monumental Danubian landscape, ‘Abriß (Anschicht) der Stadt Regensburg östlich und westlich der Steinernen Brücke’, which shows with such detail, accuracy and authenticity what life was like in one of the most important political and economic cities on the Danube in the 17th century. It has been used as an illustration in many works on the history of Regensburg ever since. It is also an important source of hydrology, as the Danube provides the lower frame throughout the picture and even a long-vanished Danube islands appear.

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Hans Georg Bahre (1586-1646) unknowingly combined the Bustletown books of Rotraut Suzanne Berner and Richard Scarry' Busytown. Just like in these books, we move from the suburbs towards the city centre and we list the inhabitants of the city by their crafts. It doesn't really matter who lived first, who knew whose work, but like the authors of children's books, Bahre has done a thorough job, so thorough that if we wanted to illuminate the background to his entire oeuvre, it would not be a blog post but a p.H.d of local history written with scholarly rigour. In its heyday, Regensburg was one of the largest, most populous and most important cities in Central Europe, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, an important Danube crossing point where no ferrymen had to be bothered with wagons and carts on their ferries, but a massive stone bridge arched over the river, concentrating a considerable amount of trade traffic between the north and south in the free imperial city bordering the Danube for two kilometers.

The purpose of the picture was not to entertain children, but to represent the wealth, grandeur and importance of Regensburg, and for practical reasons it was appropriate to use the Danube as the main viewpoint, the main commercial artery of the city, where most of the trade took place. Like in Richard Scarry's Busytown, this image is easy to navigate, for two reasons; the notable buildings, such as churches, towers and farm buildings, were inscribed, and the second reason is prosaic, as most of the notable buildings are still to be found in Regensburg today. It is also an important historical source for buildings that have since disappeared, such as the two demolished towers of the Stone Bridge.

The term monumental is not an exaggeration, the parameters of the drawing are impressive, with a length of 8 meters and a width of 40 centimeters, a format similar to ancient papyrus scrolls. It is divided into two four-meter sections, the centre being the famous Stone Bridge, where the image breaks slightly. The 8-meter-long image on Wikipedia has been broken down into 18 separate images, which makes it less enjoyable, but certainly more manageable for those who cannot go to the Bavarian State Library in Munich to see it in person. In this publication, picture 18 is not included, as Prüfening and the Naab estuary, several kilometers from Regensburg, are already included in a somewhat exaggerated way, as the Mariaorter Wöhrd is missing, for example, and the style is somewhat different from the rest of the image.

A particular feature of Regensburg's Danube side is the conflict between the city's defence and economic interests. Already the Roman fortress of Castra Regina, built in 175 AD, had one side of the Danube, the northern (shorter) wall of the rectangular legionary camp opposite the estuary of the Regen river was approximately 450 meters long, joined on two sides by civilian suburbs. On this Danube wall, facing north, stood a huge gate, the Porta Praetoria, whose ruins, preserved at a height of one storey, are among the most important Roman landmarks in Regensburg. In addition to the gate towers and the corner towers, several smaller towers punctuated the walls of the legionary camp. After the end of Roman rule, although there was a lack of continuity in the population, the fortress was settled by Bavarian tribes within its remaining walls as early as the 6th century and soon became an important centre of power once again. In 920, the first duke of Bavaria, Arnulf, extended the city walls, enclosing the western outskirts as far as the present-day Eiserner Steg footbridge. Masons extended the Danube wall to 700 meters. Another four centuries later, another extension of the fortifications became necessary, as one of Europe's most populous cities was now home to around 40,000 people. New suburbs were built to the east and west of the Arnulfian walls, and in 1320 they were added to the old city core. This meant that Regensburg's 15-towered walls followed the Danube for two kilometers, but the distance between the walls and the river was no more than a few tens of meters, where defence and economic interests clashed, since all the goods traffic on the Danube had to be carried out at the base of the city walls and entered through a relatively large number of gates and passages. In fact, there is a tower (Kräncherturm) on the city wall which was used for the economy and topped by a crane structure.

In Bahre's view of Regensburg, in front of the city walls of Regensburg, we see quays built all along the city walls, with piles and beams to make them suitable for economic activity. In this narrow area, we can observe six distinct wharves for major commodities, which have survived to the present day in the form of districts or street names, despite the fact that, with few exceptions, Regensburg's city walls were demolished in 1856. Their common characteristic is that they belonged to the part of the city west of the Stone Bridge. Of all the products, salt had the most significant impact on the townscape, the old, not much smaller building is located on the other side of the new salt warehouse, the Salzstadel next to the Stone Bridge. To the west the meat market quay comes next, which was accessed via the Fleischtor, followed by the fishermen's huts, and next to it is the Weinlände quay, which was accessed via the Weintor to the wine market within the wall (Am Weinmarkt), as it is still called today. To the west was the wharf of the ironmongers and timber merchants (Holzlände), iron goods were transported by ship from the mines and smelters around Amberg, while timber was relatively plentiful in the area around the city, but the reason for the wharf was mainly that it was easier to float logs on the Danube to Regensburg. We can see industry dangling like shells on pebbles on the eastern piers of the Stone Bridge, but economic activity can also be observed to the east, with a gunpowder mill harnessing the Danube's hydroelectric power in the foreground of the surviving Eastern Gate at the base of the city wall.

Before we move on to the Danube itself, it is worth observing the figures who populate the picture, both men and women, and all social classes. As with modern wimmelbooks, you can also discover animals, both wild and domestic. The author, Hans Georg Bahre, even depicted himself among his peers in Figure 17, initialled H.G.B. There are fishermen walking their dogs, anglers sitting on the shore, merchants haggling on the quayside, stevedores huddled under their full puttons, horsemen towing boats against the tide, or women washing clothes by the brick manufactury, with ducks and other fowl wandering about. The vegetation is also remarkable, although the town itself is mostly treeless, with some waterfront stumps harvested by basket weavers in the outskirts, but it is interesting that they have allowed larger trees to grow on the lower parts of the piers of the Stone Bridge.

As the Stone Bridge has given the city its economic importance, it is no coincidence that the pride of Regensburg is prominently featured on Bahre's picture. As the image of the bridge has changed over the centuries, it has become much simpler, even puritanical, and has lost its baroque bustle. In 1809, the northern Black Tower in Stadtamhof was demolished due to war damage, while the central tower marking the border between the two towns was destroyed by an icy flood in the 1780s. In 1630, both were still standing in all their glory. The bridge had two distinct faces, mainly due to the devastating icy floods. On the west side of the bridge's piers, huge blocks of stone served as icebreakers, breaking up the ice blocks that attacked the bridge. This was extremely important for the protection of the bridge, because the architectural possibilities of the 1130s meant that the bridge's arches had relatively limited permeability, even in summer, causing the Danube to swell, and the water level was harnessed by the water wheels of the wooden huts on the south side, which would be as futile to search for today as trees would be left to grow on bridge piers. From the bridge, as today, a side bridge led to the island called Oberer Wöhrd (Upper Island).

If there was an upper island, there had to be a lower one, and this was accessed by a wooden bridge (Die Hülzern Prucken) built east of the Stone Bridge. The lifespan of the Wooden Bridge was greatly increased by the Stone Bridge's icebreakers, the broken ice slabs probably caused less damage and the pillars did not have to be rebuilt after every icy flood. Regarding the Regensburg material names, a new bridge was built in 1863 to replace the wooden one destroyed in February 1784, and was simply called the Eiserne Brücke (Iron Bridge). In 1630, between the two bridges, we see a water control structure in the Danube, about 300 meters long, built of wooden planks and littered with stones to make it easier for sailors to moor in the blocked area.

The most important detail in Bahre's picture for this blog is the first two pictures. In addition to the two large Wöhrd that still exist today, there is also a now-vanished island, the Bruder Wöhrd on tha right riverbank, in the eastern suburbs of Regensburg. The first two pictures show two separate islands, only one of which has a name. The dried up and waterlogged riverbeds, the bridge spanning over them, are documented in incredible detail with ducks, bushes and bank protection works. The location of this island can no longer be reconstructed, nor can the church of St Nicholas, for whose monks the island is presumably named.

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Situation of each section on a XVII. century map of Regensburg.

So this is what a short stretch of the Danube must have looked like four centuries ago, this is how people lived on its urban banks, and looking at the pictures you think, if only there was a similar one of every town on the Danube!

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The images with higher resolution can be found on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Abri%C3%9F_der_Stadt_Regensburg_%281630%29?uselang=de

Riverside Maria and the Fall of Vindobona

MAGYARUL

There are "speaking" geographical names along the Danube, sometimes in the most unexpected places, often far from the river, such as one of Vienna's oldest churches. The German name of the Gothic church of Maria am Gestade clearly indicates that it stood on the riverbank when it was built, but today it is several streets and 320 metres away from the Donaukanal. The evocative name of the former church of the Danubian boatmen takes us back to the ancient history of Vienna's urban waterways and explains the peculiar shape of Vindobona's late Roman legionary camp.

The idealized image of the castra Vindobona before the III. century (source)

42 steps. That's how many steps you have to climb to get from Salzgries Street to the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary of the Riverside, on Passauer Platz, named after the former owner of Bishopric of Passau. But there are just as many steps for those arriving from the Tiefer Graben (Deep Trench - another "speaking" geographical name!), but probably even more for the medieval boatmen who climbed up from the Danube harbour below the bank to the church on the high bank, since the landfills that has since been done has reduced the difference in level considerably over the centuries. This high bank, marked by steps, can be followed eastwards to Schwedenplatz, and the site of Vienna's oldest church, the Ruprechtskirche, legend has it that it was founded in 740. The riverside Church of St. Mary and the medieval city wall immediately adjacent to it have dominated the Danube landscape of Vienna for centuries, initially the wooden chapel, then the stone church rebuilt in Gothic style at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, and its 56-meter-high tower, which was already raised by another 15-meter of the higher ground. 

42 steps of the Marienstiege towards the Passauer Platz.

The right bank of the Danube in Vienna can generally be compared to a flatter Greek theatre, where the surface slopes gradually and arena-like towards the Danube. At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, this slope was even less uniform, with flatter surfaces alternating with steeper slopes, as if they were terraces. This stepped, terraced pattern was formed by the changing water flow of the Danube during the Ice Age, mainly for climatic and tectonic reasons, and the gravel material of the higher terraces was also covered by loess layers during the late Ice Age. However, since their formation, these terrace generations have been gradually exposed to the very strong lateral erosion of the Danube, caused by the local braided, anastomosing bedforms of the Danube. Vienna's urban core was also created on one such flood-free Danube terrace, the youngest, namely on the so-called Prater Terrace. The Prater terrace was formed during the Würm glaciation, and its gravel was deposited in Vienna at an altitude of 145-153 metres above sea level.

Danubian Terraces of Vienna. The Prater Terrace is nr. 6 with lilac color. (source)

The Roman military engineers had a fairly good sense for choosing camp sites, typically settling along river crossings, on flood-free ground, at road crossings, in well-protected areas and near fresh water sources. In Vienna, too, they built as close to the river as possible, where, after the conquest of the province of Pannonia, the Roman Empire built an earth-wood military camp for its auxiliaries on the flood-free Prater Terrace. In the case of Vindobona, crossing the Danube was somewhat problematic, as the floodplain reached a width of 6-10 kilometers and dotted with islands and gravel bars, and often had no specific main branch. The Romans chose the Danube estuary of the Ottakringer stream, nowadays known mainly for the yellow-labeled beer, which cut deep into the loess surface, as the military base, following the erosion valley of the Tiefer Graben, providing a natural moat for the military camp of Vindobona. There was also a good reason why the fortress was not built on the banks of the Wienfluss: the marly rock and soil conditions of the Wiener Wald mean that rainfall can only drain away to a limited extent, so at major rainfalls discharge often increased to devastating floods towards the Danube, and the cone of alluvium deposited in the riverbed not only impeded navigation but also had a profound effect on the development of the bends in the Danube branches on the right bank.

Cross section of the Danubian Terraces. Lilac: landfill, gray: loess, green: terrace gravel (source)

At the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries the standard and regular Roman legionary camp was built, with a standard layout, familiar from many places along the Danube, but it is important to note that the orientation of the camps was not always aligned with the cardinal points, at Vindobona there is a 45 degree angle of deviation, i.e. the sides of the camp do not give the cardinal points, but the corners. Within the walls, the command buildings, barracks, baths and stores were arranged in a predetermined order in a rectangular area of about 450*500 metres (18.5 hectares) with three gates. The castrum's 3 metre wide stone walls were divided by towers, which were often rebuilt in differing shape from the ruins after the major destruction. A regular network of streets was laid out in the inner area of the legion camp, and this network of streets, together with the city walls and moats, still defines the street network and layout of the city of Vienna today. However, the archaeological excavations have not been able to reconstruct this regular layout in the Austrian capital, no finds have been recovered from the northern part of the castrum and no building foundations have been identified. The excavated Roman city wall in this section followed a natural break between the Maria am Gestade and the Ruprechtskirche. Since it is unlikely that the Romans in Vindobona deliberately deviated from the usual patterns, it can be assumed that the fortress wall may have suffered some irreparable damage that prevented it from being restored to its usual form. No barbarian opponent of the time was capable of such a feat, only the Danube. 

The line of effect of the Salzgries-arm within the legionary camp. (source)

There are two plausible scenarios for the destruction; a gradual erosion, which has been taking its toll over decades, gradually eroding the high bank and the fortress wall, and a single, extraordinary event. The latter is more likely. Sometime during the 3rd century AD, an extremely high flood may have flowed down the then westernmost branch of the Danube in Vienna, which science has named the Gonzagasse-Danube from the street that runs along its present-day course. This was the branch of the Danube on the banks of which Vindobona was originally built. The Roman legionary camp, however, was situated on the outer curve of the bend, where the proximity of the current line meant that bank erosion could occur even at mid-water. This was probably not simple riverbank erosion, but the displacement of a branch of the Danube, which also had a tectonic prediction in the fault lines of the Pannonian clay layers forming the terrace material, i.e. slides could have exacerbated the situation. 

The Danube has carried away more than 100 metres of the river terrace, shortening the lower reaches of the Ottakringer stream, removing up to several million cubic meters of sediment material from the Prater terrace, and at the same time from the western suburbs of Vindobona and the northern corner of the castrum of Vindobona. It is even possible that the suburban amphitheatre stood on the same site and also collapsed into the Danube. Similar changes in the riverbed were not at all uncommon in the pre-regulation period in the vicinity of Vienna, with sediment or other riverbed material often blocking off branches and causing islands, gravel bars and even settlements and bridges to be demolished in search of new routes. Severin Hohensinner's images illustrate this process over the last two millennia. 

42 steps to Maria am Gestade church

It is thought that material from the collapsed wall of the camp was used in Roman times to stabilise the collapsed bank and rebuild the northern wall of the camp along the newly formed river branch, which science calls the Salzgries branch from another street. This street name is also an evocative geographical name, a reminder of the salt trading ships that harboured here. Vindobona was by then past its heyday, having experienced a decline in socio-economic terms broadly similar to that of Aquincum. At one point in its history, a dwindling and impoverished population moved within the fortress walls until, sometime in the early 5th century, Roman administration ceased and the camp and its suburbs fell into ruin. If there was a continuity in the population, archaeology has found no evidence of it, the latest coin dates from 408 and after the middle of the century a layer of no archaeological remains was formed over the Roman ruins. 

Steps to the Ruprechtskirche, Vienna's oldest church

But the Salzgries branch of the Danube remained where it was, in the northern foothills of the ruined Roman fortress walls, and a thousand years later the church of Maria am Gestade was named after it. The name was a timely one, for the river, which was once quite navigable in size, gradually became silted up and narrowed during the 12th century, and the Danube bed moved away from the high bank to the north-east to form the so-called Porzellangassen branch, but still remained within the present-day Danube Canal to the west. 

Riverbed changes during the antiquity and in the Medieval Era in Vienna's 1st district.
1. Gonzagagasse-branch 2. Salzgries-branch 3. Porzellangassen-branch 4. Ottakringer stream
10. Wienfluss 11. Trench system of Vindobona (source: Wasser | Stadt | Wien)

The shifting of the Danube riverbed in the 3rd century left such an indelible mark on Vienna's urban structure that it affected not only the differences in geomorphology but also the city's road network. Neither the thousands of years of human landforming nor the great Viennese river regulation of 1875 were able to erase the work of the Danube that had been preserved precisely because of the building development. And if we listen carefully to the geographical names that speak, they tell us about the historical and geographical changes that have taken place over the millennia. 

Literature :

• https://tobias-lib.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/61026/CD71_Gietl_et_al_CAA_2003.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
• https://www.wgm.wien.at/hydrogeologische-forschung/news/flut-von-vindobona
• https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Salzgries
• https://www.wien.gv.at/kulturportal/public/grafik.aspx?bookmark=0nZLRk2zFUYHn7dFw-aI3RRwpAtZGVBFvuBteonQ1N1C4dSRsFu7fFg-b-b
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindobona
• https://www.wgm.wien.at/fileadmin/docs/hydrogeo-forschung/2022/Vortr%C3%A4ge/Pr%C3%A4sentation_WGM2022.pdf

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Blasting the Schwalleck

MAGYARUL

Despite the fact that sirens throughout the city had given half an hour's notice of the historic event, the explosion of the Schwalleck rock in Grein, which overlooks the Danube, caused serious collateral damage. Collapsed walls of apartment blocks, roads buried by debris and damaged railway embankments signalled the beginning of the process of making the "Austrian Iron Gates", the infamous Strudel Strait, navigable. 

The Schwalleck peninsula. A detail from the map of Strudengau. (Leopold Franz von Rosenfelt, 1721.)

The term "Austrian Iron Gates" is no coincidence, the Strudengau in Austria was as much a dreaded passage for sailors as the Iron Gate, Islás or Tachtalia on the Lower Danube. On this 25-kilometer stretch, the Danube cuts its way through the 300-million-year-old granite cliffs of the Bohemian Massif between Ardagger/Dornach and Ybbs/Persenbeug, where the rocky reefs and the whirpools they create have caused the destruction of many ships, for example between Wörth and Werfenstein. Just as the (second) regulation of the Iron Gates began in 1890 with the blowing up of a symbolic rock, the Grében, so the regulation of the Strudengau began with explosions, the first being the castle of Donaudorf on the right bank near Ybbs on 20 December 1955, and the second being the blowing up of the left bank of the Schwalleck promontory near the town of Grein in Upper Austria.

Outlook from the Schwalleck towards the town and castle of Grein.

Until Friday, 13 June 1958, at 12.30 pm, the Schwalleck Cliff reached far into the Danube, and in a very bad place, for navigation, as the drift line of the river led ships travelling downstream straight into it, while above it, at the mouth of the Greinerbach, a shoal was formed where flating ice were regularly stuck, and the cross-section of the river at the cliffs was also narrowing, causing the river to speed up, which made life difficult for sailors heading in the opposite direction, towards Linz. Geographically, the 250-260 m high Schwalleck was a counterpart to the cliff on which Grein Castle was built at the end of the 15th century, and these two heights defined the local skyline, the town of Grein being either depicted from here or depicted as being on the picture. It was about 40 to 50 meters above the Danube's zero level.

The doomed Schwalleck, and the evacuated buildings at its foot. (source)

It was originally topped by a cross called Halterkreuz, the origin of which is told in a local legend: a shepherd from Grein used to graze his cattle near the cliff during high water. While grazing, he was trying to fetch scrap wood out of the flood, which he wanted to store for firewood during the winter. When he tried to drag a large branch ashore, he slipped and fell into the water. Unable to swim, he desperately squeezed the drifting branch and, fearing for his life, vowed that if he managed to escape, he would place a cross on the shore to the glory of God. The river eventually swept the branch ashore, where he managed to cling to a tree hanging in the water and was lucky to escape. He kept his vow and the so-called Shepherd's Cross stood at Schwalleck Cliff until the explosion. [1] There was another cross here, the Schwalleck Kreuz, which was also destroyed by the blast, but was later reerected on the side of the cliff face opposite the Halterkreuz [2]. 

The moment of the explosion (source)

Austria's first hydroelectric power plant on the Danube was built jointly with Germany between 1952 and 1956, on the border between the two countries, just next to the unique Jochenstein cliff, which fortunately was not blown up along with the statue of St John Nepomuk on it. Austria then began to barrage the Danube, and construct the next power station which was located at the lower end of the Strudengau, between Ybbs and Persenbeug, precisely because of the navigability of the Strudengau. 

On 11 June 1958, the mayor of Grein sent out a leaflet informing the population of the impending explosion. The precaution was certainly justified, as there were already inhabited houses less than 100 metres from the Schwalleck cliff, which the town did not wish to demolish. Some nearby structures had to be sacrificed, such as those built at the base of the cliff. Doors and windows had to be left open, parked cars were removed, and valuables and furniture were moved to the far corners of the rooms for safekeeping. However, due to the proximity of the site, the blast caused significant damage to the city [3]. 

Landscape after the blast (source)

On that day, 5,800 kilograms of explosives blew up the cliff, from which more than three hundred thousand cubic meters of stone were then extracted in several stages, ensuring the unobstructed flow of ice and the necessary width of the shipping lane. Interestingly, a small cliff was left as a memorial between the Danube and the new main road, and the Shepherd's Cross was put back on it when the works were completed. Since then, the vegetation has conquered the cliff, the cars the new route and the boats the less dangerous bend in the river. The Ybbs-Persenbeug hydroelectric power station has raised the water level by 11 metres at the power station, about 5 metres at Wört and slightly less at Grein, and has removed the rapids, reefs and cliffs of the Strudengau. There is now no threat to navigation on the uniform river.  

The boulder of Halterkreuz left as a memento (forrás)

Everyone seems to have well served. If you're passing by, you don't miss anything, as if everything was already like this. What we don't know doesn't hurt. To those whose hearts we might have hurt by this old story, we apologise. 

But we will continue.  

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Danke an die Autoren des Österreichischen Donaubuchs für die Idee!

[1] https://www.grein.at/Tourismus/Sehenswuerdigkeiten/Halterkreuz

[2] https://www.grein.at/Tourismus/Sehenswuerdigkeiten/Schwalleck_Kreuz

[3] https://www.im-fundus.at/das-greiner-schwalleck-gefuerchtetes-schifffahrtshindernis/

Where the Amber Road Crossed the Danube

MAGYARUL

Stopfenreuth is probably not one of the best-known settlement names along the Danube, even in Austrian terms, and the riverine forest on the outskirts of the village, which barely belongs to Engelhartstetten, might even seem like the end of the world from Vienna, even though in ancient times one of the arteries of European trade, the Amber Road, ran crossed the Danube here. There is no visible evidence of the site's importance in the muddy riverine forest today, but when archaeologists scratch the sediment layers of the Danube, they come across ancient Roman walls.  

The tower of the military camp, unlike what we are used to, was located inside the wall.  

On 20 February 2025, the website of the Donauauen National Park published an article that archaeologists from the Carnuntum Museum and the Austrian Archaeological Institute had discovered a Roman fortress in the Stopfenreuther Au area of the Austrian national park. To be more precise, only what was left of it by the Danube; a short section of wall in the northern corner of the military camp, together with the base of an inner tower. The island, called Stopfenreuther Au, is located on the left bank of the Danube, in fact in the Barbaricum, opposite today's Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, but slightly to the north-east of the ancient legionary camp of Carnuntum. Excavations began towards the end of the vegetation season in order to minimise disturbance to wildlife, as the ruins lie on the floodplain, under 0.5-0.8 m of sediment, which is now completely covered by a vast riverine forest.

The fine-grained Danube sediment, which covered the ruins in thick layers, is clearly visible.

The Boris flood on the Danube in September delayed and hampered the work, but the excavation was completed in November, the trenches were reburied and, despite the fact that the Roman fortress (unlike Hungary) has been a World Heritage Site in Austria since 2021, the national park has requested that the vegetation be allowed to reoccupy the strictly protected area. This will be followed by an evaluation of the finds, which will hopefully shed light on the circumstances of the fort's construction and destruction, and will allow conclusions to be drawn about the hydrological conditions of the period, since archaeology is currently unable to say for certain on which bank of the river this Roman military camp, which was largely destroyed by the Danube, was originally built.  

The Stopfenreuth excavation in 2024 as seen from above.  

Erőd-ellenerőd példákat a Duna számos pontjáról ismerünk a római kori Pannoniából, Brigetioval szemben ott állt az izsai Leányvár, Pestről ismert a Március 15. téri erőd, a kisebb kikötőerődökről nem is beszélve (Dunakeszi, Nógrádverőce, Dunaszekcső, stb.) Stopfenreuth-nál alig maradt valami a római erődből, de a meglévő falszakasz alapján egyértelműen látszik, hogy kiserődről van szó, nem pedig kikötőerődről, erre utal a fal íve és az ív belső oldalán épült trapéz alaprajzú torony, sőt a toronyalap helyzete alapján azt is feltételezik, hogy ez nem egy későrómai építmény, amikor a patkó alakú tornyokat az erőd falsíkjához képest kívülre építették. 

Examples of fortress and counterfortress pairs are known from many places on the Danube from Roman Pannonia; the fortress of Leányvár in Izsa opposite Brigetiovo, the fortress of Március 15. square in Budapest, not to mention the smaller harbour fortresses (Dunakeszi, Nógrádverőce, Dunaszekcső, etc. ) At Stopfenreuth, hardly anything remains of the Roman fortress, but the existing section of wall clearly indicates that it was a small fortress, not a harbour fortress, as is indicated by the trapezoidal tower built on the inside of the arch and the position of the base of the tower, which suggests that it was not a late Roman structure, when the horseshoe-shaped towers were built outside the wall plane of the fortress.  

Location of the Ödes Schloss fortress and the ferry crossing on the III. military survey (1870s)

Although all the remains of the fort are covered in floodplain sediment, the ruins were not unknown to archaeologists, with substantial wall stumps still standing on the bank in the 1860s. Where the Danube had just cut through the walls of the fortress, a cross-section of the stone wall was cropped out perpendicular to the bank, and the places where it was built were referred to by several names, one of the most common being 'Ödes Schloss', or Desolate Castle, a name that also often appears on maps, However, there were also expressive hydrological names, such as 'Hungerstein' or 'Durstkugel', which refers to lean years with significant draughts, as their appearance was probably related to record low water levels. 

The archaeological interest in the nearby legionary camp of Carnuntum (Bad Deutsch-Altenburg) and its civilian settlement (Petronell), despite the three kilometre distance, was the main reason why excavations were carried out here relatively early, at the end of the 19th century (1896, 1898, and 1900), when researchers already assumed that it was an important element of the fortified Roman Danubian border (ripa) connected to Carnuntum. The figure below shows the same section of wall as the one excavated in the autumn of 2024. On this site, archaeologists fount the brick stamp of the leg. XV Apollinaris, a legion known to have been stationed in Carnuntum between 9-61 AD and 73-117 AD, i.e. either the camp was built at this time or the building material was reused at a later date.

Site plan of the 1898 excavation.

Between Klosterneuburg and Bratislava, the Danube meandering through the Marchfeld was once a major obstacle to north-south traffic. This 60-kilometer stretch of the Danube cannot be characterised by a single main riverbed, which widens to 4.5 kilometres in places, where the constantly changing pattern of tributaries, backwaters, gravel bars and islands made it virtually impossible to create permanent crossings until the river was regulated. At Carnuntum, however, this Danube floodplain narrowed slightly, with the Kirchenberg limestone block, which emerged as a peninsula, forming a flood-free surface directly on the bank of the main branch, while at Stopfenreuth the floodplain narrowed to 1.7 km. This is still a relatively large distance, but the generally lower Danube water levels of Roman times allowed the establishment of a river crossing, which was an important cross-continent economic artery of antiquity, leading to the Baltic amber deposits from Aquileia. 

The stump of a section of wall destroyed by the Danube.

At the time of the first archaeological excavations between 1896 and 1900, the section of the fortress wall formed a spur in the Rosskopf branch of the Danube, and behind it the backwash formed a small bay in the inner part of the fortress. At the end of the 18th century, the Rosskopf branch was even wider than the branch that washed the high bank of the Carnuntum, now the main branch. Generally speaking, the river's course was constantly changing due to its course, and there were no two maps alike in that the islands, gravel bars or the banks are in the same position, which is why the cartographic representation of this stretch is much less accurate than that of other, more stable stretches of the Danube. The confluence of the two branches was generally at the foot of the Kirchenberg, where, according to contemporary maps, a ferry crossing operated. The southern crossing point of the ferry occupied a fixed position in the northern part of Deutsch-Altenburg, but on the northern bank the ferry port was constantly in flux, where it landed on the island surrounded by the Rosskopf branch, but mostly landed at the Ödes Schloss, suggesting that the crossing continued to operate after the loss of the importance of the Amber Road, albeit with less traffic.

The route of the Amber Road between Aquileia and the Danube border.

Geographical considerations were the main reason for the route of the Amber Road between Aquileia and Carnuntum, which avoided mountainous areas impassable in winter and was as close as possible to them, it had to cross as narrow a watercourse as possible in the province of Pannonia, the Sava at Emona (Ljubljana), the Drava at Poetiovo (Ptuj), the Mura and then the Zala at Sala (Zalalövő), the Raba south of Savaria (Szombathely) before reaching the Danube east of Carnuntum (Deutsch-Altenburg). At this point, it is assumed that there was a temporary pontoon bridge, which was replaced by a ferry crossing in the Middle Ages and modern times. After 1951, this was replaced by a cable ferry, which also transported cars. The latter was a relatively brief moment in the history of the crossing, and in January 1973 a new Danube bridge was inaugurated on the site of the crossing, which since 2012 has borne the name of the Lower Austrian Landeshauptmann Andreas Maurer, the only bridge between Vienna and Bratislava to date. The fact that the bridge now crosses the Rosskopf branch where the Roman army built the military camp almost two millennia ago says a lot about the Roman engineers' choice of location. 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Source of news, pictures: 

• https://www.donauauen.at/aktuelles/news/das-roemische-brueckenkopfkastell-in-der-stopfenreuther-au
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinkastell_Stopfenreuth
• https://www.lobaumuseum.wien/cms/erinnerung-an-die-rollfaehre-bad-deutsch-altenburg/

Early Holocene Island below Budapest's III. District

MAGYARUL

Thanks to the joint research of prehistoric archaeologists and geographers, more and more details are becoming known about an ancient Danubian island and its first inhabitants, located under the 3rd district of Budapest. This big island once stretched from Csillaghegy (north) to Hajógyári Island (south), but its side arm was blocked off from the main Danube some 6000 years ago for climatic and tectonic reasons. In the Early Holocene, this Western Danube arm was gradually occupied by the surrounding watercourses, but traces of the riverbed can still be seen in the street network of the Mocsárosdűlő and Csillaghegy. 

Early Holocene hidrography of the Óbuda plains.  (I. Viczián) [2]

The proceedings of the XI. MΩMOΣ Research of Prehistory Conference, 10-12 April 2019, focused on the relationship between the environment and humans. The Óbuda area has been a priority area of research in landscape and environmental reconstruction, especially in relation to the Roman past of Aquincum. In the publication published in 2023 as Volume III of the Prehistoric Studies, a total of three papers discuss the environmental reconstruction of the prehistoric Danubian floodplain of Óbuda in three different excavation areas. At the site of Királyok útja 291-295, the researchers found the Danube mouth of the Csillaghegy Ditch, i.e. the northern tip of the prehistoric island [1]. Shallow drilling was carried out at the swampy area of Mocsárosdűlő in connection with the prehistoric sites along Pusztakúti street [2], and the Neolithic settlement of the island was studied at the site of Nánási street 75-77 [3]. Sediment samples from the excavations in the Csillaghegy Ditch and the Mocsárosdűlő site yielded almost identical results regarding the date of the Danube branch's bedding, despite the fact that the subsequent filling of the former Danube bed created different hydrographic characters at different sections. 

A summary of the end-of-quaternary climate history, with the river meandering activity.

In the Early Holocene period, the Óbuda floodplain between Békásmegyer and Újlak was a very different landscape compared to today. The Danube riverbed was not nearly as well canalised, with its tributaries freely flowing through the floodplain on both sides. During the Early Holocene, the dominant main branch of the Danube had already developed in the Óbuda area, but at that time, even larger side branches were still surrounding the relatively numerous and large islands (e.g. the Óceán Ditch on the east). The Early Holocene Óbuda-Danube branch can be relatively easily identified on a map, as the street network largely preserves the contours of the old riverbeds. The street network of Csillaghegy still shows the Csillaghegy Ditch parallel to the Árpád Street, which turned southwards near the Árpád Bath of Csillaghegy. Here it could form additional islands in the widening channel in the Mocsárosdűlő area. The Early Holocene Óbuda Island was over 5 kilometres long and covered an area of about 600 hectares.

Previously, two ideas competed over where the Óbuda Danube could return to the main branch. According to Ferenc Schweitzer [4], the estuary was originally located at the northern tip of Margaret Island, north of Újlak. This supposed Danube branch has been identified by archaeologists in the form of a drainage ditch at the foot of the Kiscell hilltop, but the archaeological fact that the legionary camp of Aquincum, i.e. the built-up area, extended from the Danube to the foot of the hilltop, rules out a Roman Danube bed in this area. If there were smaller creeks below the Kiscelli Hill in prehistoric times, they were displaced from the area by the Roman period at the latest and diverted north of the legionary camp into a new, shorter and straightened channel. 

The other possibility is that Óbuda was last an island in the Pleistocene. The Óbuda Danube originally flowed along the lower reaches of the old channel of the Aranyhegyi creek in the Early Holocene, and its estuary was north of Hajógyári Island. This idea is supported by the age of the Danubian terraces excavated in the Óbuda area and their height relative to the Danube level. 

The highest elevations of the Early Holocene Óbuda Island are marked by the level of terrace II/a, which was raised during the whole Holocene by sand layers blown out of the barren western mountains, the Transdanubian terrace surface and the riverbed [4]. The terrace no. I alias the higher floodplain level had already been formed (at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary - see the Gábris-Nádor Figure 2007), but the lower floodplain levels were only carved out by the Danube later, during the Subboreal. This means that each terrace level was 'one step lower' in the numbering: the present Terrace I (high floodplain) existed then at a low floodplain level, while the now flood-free Terrace II/a may have been a Terrace I (high floodplain) in the Early Holocene. 

Archaeology and earth sciences study the same layers in excavations, but their methods, approaches and basic objectives are different. Sometimes, however, the common sets create fruitful collaborations between representatives of each discipline, giving a more complex and comprehensive picture of the interaction between past people and their former environment. Archaeologists categorise buried layers of soil primarily on the basis of human factors such as artefacts, while geoscientists draw conclusions from the geochemistry, grain size, colour and mineral composition of the layer. The working procedures, the methods of dating and the instruments used deserve a separate entry, but fortunately the studies in this volume discuss this in a paragraph or two. In short, each archaeogeographical environment is characterised by different sedimentation. If a poorly sorted, organic matter-poor, gravelly, gravelly sandy layer is found, it may be inferred that the sediment was deposited in the bed of an active river. The total thickness of this late Quaternary river sediment in the Óbuda catchment is 10-15 m. The Danube beds were cut into this terrace gravel. The sediments are rich in organic matter, typically fine-grained and dark in colour, and typically settle in a marshy environment. Thus, based on the type, succession and thickness of sediments, it is possible to basically define a sedimentary environment, including the life cycles of a buried riverbed.  

The following sequence of layers was reconstructed at the northern section of the Csillaghegy Ditch (Királyok útja 291-295) on the basis of the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating:

6500 BC: Danube sediments, gravel, pebbles (active riverbed)

6000-5500 BC: shallow water, floodplain sediments of the Danube (sedimentation, decreasing water discharge)

5000-3000 BC: sediment deficit. Presumably, the reverse flow of a small creek in the Danube valley in the Danube lowlands carried sediments away. 

AD 1-1000: deposition of marshy sediments due to decreasing water flow, possibly caused by Roman drainage, which drained the waters of the Mocsáros marsh and Rómaifürdő springs mainly to the south.

1500 AD: accelerating sedimentation, marshy sediments.

Riverbed reconstruction based on sediment samples taken at the former mouth of the Csillaghegy Ditch  (Gy. Sipos) [1]

On the basis of the discovered Neolithic settlements, the researchers assume that in the Csillaghegy area the Western Óbudai Danube has already been blocked off from the main Danube by the Middle Neolithic. The water network was radically altered by the deglaciation, as the former Danube arm flowing in a southerly direction was replaced by the Csillaghegy Ditch, which transported waters of the mountainous area and springs into the Danube, but in the opposite direction, northwards. The Óbuda-Danube branch was influenced by the precipitation of the Atlantic climate phase. The sediments suggest that the Danube bed migrated slightly eastwards in parallel with the drift and incision, while the mouth of the stream in the Csillaghegy Ditch was dragged southwards. The latter is a phenomenon commonly observed in lowland streams flowing into the Danube. 

The cross sections of two different floodplain levels excavated during the excavation, "Section B is the higher floodplain, Section A the lower floodplain. (Viczián I.)

At the same time, the excavation at 295 Királyok útja revealed different processes at different levels of the floodplain in prehistory. At the higher levels, suitable for human settlement, only 30-60 cm of sediment including artefacts was deposited from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Iron Age, while the lower floodplain sediment deposited during the same period was 250 cm thick. This means that sediment accumulation on the higher ground was already taking place in a typically terrestrial environment at this time. This includes the human cultural layer, airborne dust, organic matter from vegetation and silt deposited by the major Danube floods. Meanwhile, flooding was much more frequent at the lower level, i.e. the differences between the two floodplain levels were gradually eroded by the Danube-derived sediment, making the initially lower floodplain level increasingly suitable for human settlement. In this respect, it is no coincidence that the ruins of the town of Aquincum, lying on a nearly flood-free surface, are covered in places by less than 25 cm of sediment.

Cross-section of the Mocsárosdűlő explored by shallow geological drilling
and the stratigraphic boundaries identified on the basis of macroscopic features (Sipos Gy.) [2]

In the Mocsárosdűlő area, the OSL dating reconstructed the following sequence of strata:

5930-4910 BC Sand and gravel sediment, active fluvial formation, island-structured, multi-branched river network. This layer was overlain by a fine-grained clayey silt layer, which was already a precursor of sedimentation. 

5410-4610 BC Another layer of gravel was deposited on top of the silty layer, indicating renewed river activity. This was the last active period of the Western Óbudai Danube. 

4610-2800 BC After this period, the presence of river sediment in the marshland area ceases. The decrease in the sedimentation rate indicates that, over time, floods reached the area less and less frequently. The Mocsáros, which at that time still had an open, lake-like water surface, was supplied by groundwater and streams from the surrounding valleys, but at the same time the alluvial cone of the Aranyhegyi stream was building up and expanding at the expense of the open water surface.

2800 BC - AD 14th c. Shallow, eutrophic, marshy environment, increasingly dark, organic-rich sediments. The carving out of the low floodplain, followed by Roman drainage, further depleted the groundwater in the area, and thus the open waters of the Mocsáros marsh. From the Middle Ages to the present day, sedimentation has continued, with the marshy surface becoming increasingly smaller. 

Results of OSL and C14 dating on sediments from Drill No. 4. (Gy. Sipos) [2]

After the Óbudai Danube became an oxbow, complex processes took place in the former riverbed, but in general, the surface-forming influence of the surrounding watercourses increased significantly, while the Danubian influence gradually decreased. Floods entered the old tributary less and less frequently, and the sediment deposited there could only be partially transported by the smaller watercourses flowing into the Danube. These watercourses also transported a considerable amount of (slope) sediment from the valleys running down from the west. As a result, the riverbed, estimated at a maximum width of 200 meters, has been steadily narrowing. One of the interesting features of this Early Holocene basin is that the upper and lower estuaries of the basin were not closed, as streams on both sides continued to 'use' the riverbed. Finally, it was only anthropogenic interventions in the 19th and 20th centuries (sluices, stream bed relocations) that eliminated the former upper and lower estuaries.

Hydrography of the III. district between the Middle Neolithic and the Middle Ages.
(I. Viczián) [2]

Danube influence continued to be exerted through the groundwater, which during floods was moving between the oxbow and the Danube through the loose, gravelly alluvium. During floods, the deepest areas, such as the Mocsárosdűlő, were saturated with water, while during low water periods the river sucked this stagnant water away. Later, human intervention, canalisation and drainage further increased this suction effect. In addition, the surface waters of the Mocsáros were fed by springs, surface water courses and direct precipitation. The combined flow of these probably did not exceed 2 cubic metres per second. In the volume Ókori táj, ókori város [4], the water yield of all springs in the area was estimated at 42000 cubic metres per day. This is equivalent to about half a cubic metre per second, to which must be added the average flow of the Aranyhegyi creek of 0.3 cubic metres per second, and the flow of other smaller streams. Over the past millennia, some of these watercourses have been buried by the city and climatic influences may have modified the water yield, so that an exact value for these can no longer be determined. By comparison, this is at most a third of the water yield of the Zala river entering the lake Balaton. In addition, it should be noted that the waters of the oxbow flowed in two directions due to the effect of the emerging watershed in the Óbuda-Danube basin. From the late Neolithic onwards, the waters of the Mocsáros surplus, the sources of the Roman baths, the Árpád spring and the waters coming from the Kert street in Békásmegyer reached the Danube in a northerly direction via the Csillaghegy Ditch, while the combined waters of the Aranyhegyi stream and the Rádl Ditch flowed in a southerly direction. It is possible, however, that the Aranyhegyi stream may have changed its course in the early period from its newly formed alluvial cone in the channel. From Roman times onwards, human influence has profoundly redrawn the hydrology of the landscape. 

Connections between archaeological cultures and sediments of the Mocsárosdűlő. (Gy. Sipos) [2]

As archaeological research uncovers more and more of the Early Holocene Óbuda Island, our ideas about the prehistoric landscape and environment are expanding and refining regarding the area of Budapest's III. district. The research even sheds light on when humans settled on this piece of land. 

The relationship between prehistoric man and the river is illustrated by the sites along the river banks, which in some periods were closer to the river and in others moved further away from it. This periodicity has long been known to climatologists because it can be linked to changes in climate. In wetter periods, when flood risk increased, human settlements moved away from the river, while in drier periods they may have even occupied the lower floodplains intermittently. 

The cutting off of the Óbudai Danube by the Middle Neolithic, facilitated access to the area, and the deepening of the main branch of the river created the opportunity for the settlement of communities of the Linear Pottery culture (c. 5500–4500 BC). The occupation of the former Danubian areas of the island of Óbuda may have begun during the period of the pottery of the Notehead ceramics style (c. 5300-5200 BC). Then, gradually, several new settlements were established, when there was only an oxbow at the site of the Mocsáros. The site of the village excavated by Zsuzsanna M. Virág at 75-77 Nánási Street was inhabited until the end of the Želiezovce group period (c. 4900 BC). During the Želiezovce period, previously uninhabited islands were also populated, such as the northern tip of the present-day Óbuda Island. This means that the present-day Óbuda Island and Margaret Island with its similar floodplain levels may have existed at the end of the Holocene. The settlement excavated on Nánási street was formed on a land surface sloping down to the east, i.e. towards the Danube, and consisted of two parts. The higher (103.6 m.B.f.) and the deeper (102 m.B.f.) parts were separated by a two-metre deep ditch. Settlement on the lower surface could only have been intermittent, interrupted by the rising water level of the Danube in the late Neolithic (4950-4400 BC) [3].  

Recent hydrological features of the III. district. I. Viczián [2]

Human settlement has ultimately accelerated the natural processes of sedimentation of the Óbuda oxbow lake. Settlements had to be provided with access through the former Óbudai Danube riverbed. Farmers were also interested in filling in deeper areas and in the canalization of creeks towards the Danube. The ponds turned into sloughs, the sloughs into marshes, the marshes into bogs, while the wetlands continued to shrink. The climatically and tectonically incised main branch of the Danube have disappeared for good after the last layer of gravel in the marsh. Danubian floods continued to inundate the area for a long time and accumulated considerable amounts of silt. Thus, one of Budapest's largest islands ceased to exist some 6,000 years ago, and the fact that record floods can sometimes still form open water in the deepest parts of the Mocsáros, does not change this.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

MΩMOΣ XI. Research of Prehistory Conference 

Proceedings of the conference held at the BTM (Budapest History Museum) Aquincum Museum on 10-12 April 2019. Link: https://edit.elte.hu/xmlui/handle/10831/85856?key=%C5%91sr%C3%A9g%C3%A9szeti%20tanulm%C3%A1nyok

[1] Gábor Szilas – István Viczián – György Sipos – Dávid Gergely Páll – Zsuzsanna M. Virág – Kinga Rekeczki: The Impact of Fluvial Landscape Evolution on Prehistoric Settlement Patterns along the Danube: An Interdisciplinary Environmental Reconstruction in Óbuda, NW Budapest

[2] Farkas Márton Tóth – István Viczián – György Sipos – Dávid Gergely Páll – Zsuzsanna M. Virág – Gábor Szilas – Dávid Kraus: Environmental Changes along a Former Tributary of the Danube. Interdisciplinary Research in Mocsárosdűlő (Budapest, District III) 

[3] Zsuzsanna M. Virág: Neolithic Humans and the River Danube. The Possibilities of Environmental Reconstruction in an Urban Area. A Case Study (75–77 Nánási Road, Budapest, District III.

[4] Katalin H. Kérdő, Ferenc Schweitzer, (2010) Aquincum : ókori táj, ókori város. http://real-eod.mtak.hu/4508/