page_title: Alcimoennis
section_title: Michelsberg fortifications
hierarchical_section_title: Alcimoennis / Description / Michelsberg fortifications
caption_attribution_description: English: Kelheim ( Lower Bavaria ). Archaeological Museum: Rampart wall ( 1st century BC ) from the La Téne oppidum at Kelheim-Michelsberg.Deutsch: Kelheim ( Niederbayern ). Archäologisches Museum: Pfostenschlitzmauer vom keltischen Oppidum auf dem Michelsberg ( Kelheim ).
context_page_description: Alcimoennis is the name widely attached to a Celtic Oppidum, or hill fort above the modern town of Kelheim in Bavaria, Germany. The name comes from Ptolemy, who in his Geography, only mentioned the name and described the location of the settlement. There is some controversy over the identification of the Kelheim remains with Alcimoennis, but it is still widely accepted.
context_section_description: The exterior wall of the late-Celtic oppidum surrounded the whole Michelsberg and Hirschberg. Inside the area of roughly 600 ha the settlement from the second and first century BCE now referred to as Alcimoennis was located. It is the second largest such site in southern Germany after Heidengraben. The settlement included an artisan quarter at the Mitterfeld and a viereckschanze on an island in the Altmühl. Otherwise, few housing units or graves have been discovered. The oppidum was secured by at least three sectional wall-and-moat defences. All the walls followed the same pfostenschlitzmauer design: tree trunks of roughly 60 cm diameter were pushed into the earth at least 1 m deep and roughly 2 m apart. On the outward-facing side, the space between the wooden beams was closed with limestone sheets from nearby quarries to a height of at least 5 to 6 m. The earthen ramparts which supported the back were around 10 to 11 m wide. An estimate puts the need for construction materials at more than 8,000 trees, 17,000 cubic m of limestone, and 35,000 cubic m of earth. It would have taken at 50 workers at least 70 years to build such a wall. The remains of four de:Zangentore (gates) have been discovered as entries though the walls.
  The outer rampart crossed the peninsula, connecting the cliffs above the Danube near the later Weltenburg Abbey to the southern bank of the Altmühl, a distance of 3.3 km. It likely was built in three separate stages and at some places reached a height of 6 m, averaging around 2 to 3 m. A moat was present only at some points, which has raised questions about its defensive character - it might simply have been holes dug to gain construction materials. The wall also was built in pfostenschlitz style, pierced in only three places by Zangentore. The connecting wall following the southern bank of the Altmühl was added only in the last, the third, stage of construction.
  The inner rampart, also connected the cliffs overlooking the Danube to the Altmühl. It is 930 m long and extant to a height of up to 4 m. On its outer side is a moat (2 m deep, 7 m wide) and a berm (5 m). Two Zangentore gave access to the Michelsberg. In construction the inner rampart resembled the outer one. It was completely rebuilt once.
  Along the southern bank of the Altmühl a 3.3 km long wall was added during the latest period of construction. This was the structure that was destroyed by canal construction in the nineteenth century. Excavations uncovered evidence of one gate (added later), however, and this wall had been of the pfostenschlitz-type. The wall likely curved south at its eastern end, at what is today the Radlmüllergraben, west of the old town of Kelheim.
caption: Reconstruction of a pfostenschlitzmauer at Kelheim
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