page_title: Rapperswil
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Rapperswil / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Rapperswil (SG)&#160;: Sicht vom Zürichsee auf den Hügel mit Schloss Rapperswil und Kapuzinerkloster mit Resten der alten Stadtbefestigung, ganz rechts das Einsiedlerhaus. English: Rapperswil (SG)&#160;: Lindenhof hill, Kapuzinerkloster and Einsiedlerhaus (to the right), as seen from as seen from ZSG paddle steamer Stadt Zürich.
context_page_description: Rapperswil is a former municipality and since January 2007 part of the municipality of Rapperswil-Jona in the Wahlkreis of See-Gaster in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland, located at the east side of the Lake Zurich.
context_section_description: Settlements in the region of Rapperswil date back to at least 5000 years ago. Archaeological relicts have been found at the Technikum island settlement, and the remains of a first wooden bridge (1523 BC, reconstructed in 2001) to Hurden located on the Obersee lakeshore nearby the Technical University (HSR) respectively the so-called Heilig Hüsli at the northwestern part of the Seedamm area. The three neighbouring Prehistoric settlements, as well as the early lake crossings, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps. In Kempraten, two kilometers away, there was a probably Helvetic settlement; and in the beginning of the 1st century AD, the Roman vicus Centum Prata (meaning 100 meadows) became an important trade center on the way to the Roman heartland. The neolithic bridge between Hurden and Rapperswil was renewed by the Romans at least around 165 AD.
  Historians mention a 10th-century ferry station assumably at the so-called Einsiedlerhaus in Rapperswil – in 981 AD as well as the vineyard on the Lindenhof hill – between Kempraten on Kempratnerbucht, Lützelau and Ufenau island and assumably present Hurden, which allowed the pilgrims towards Einsiedeln to cross the lake before the prehistoric bridge at the Seedamm isthmus was re-built in 1358.
caption: Capuchin monastery as seen from Lake Zürich
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