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At the dawn of the Christian era the frontiers of the Roman Empire shifted
up to the Middle Danube, and it was the provincial administration who had to
defend it. North of the river lived the Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi.
The Romans tried to control their frontier areas not only through an effort
to subdue the local princes but also through a direct military presence at
the barbarian bridgehead. With regard to this fact, there was a region around
the confluence of the March and Danube Rivers, which had a strategic importance.
At these places the so-called Amber route left the area under the Roman control
and passed over to the barbarian territory. In the mid-2nd century some military, political and last but not least also commercial reasons
pushed the Romans to build a stronghold in this section of the barbarian side
of the frontier, namely on the territory of today’s Stupava (an older name
was Stampfen, a town situated west of Bratislava) at a beeline of 13 km from
the confluence of the Danube and March Rivers, and 20 km from Carnuntum.
The selected place where the Romans decided to build the said stronghold was the mound Kopec projecting towards West from the Small Carpathians massive. From the mound they were able to control the course of the Amber route deep into the barbarian territory. Through an experiment also the possibility of a visual connection to Carnuntum could be proved. The settlement activity at this site before the advent of the Romans is documented through shards from the Late Bronze and Latène Periods as well as through semi-sunken Germanic features from the first half of the 2nd century.
After the mound Kopec was occupied
by the Romans, they built here a building of quadratic ground plan with dry-walled
basement of river stones. The overground part consisted of a wood-and-earth
construction with lime daubing. There are no traces of an inner house arrangement,
maybe except for a narrow trench in north-south direction. West of this building
some traces of a trench barn could be detected. It is possible that there were
still some another constructions of that kind in this section, however, they
could have been destroyed by later building activity of the Romans. The basement
found was probably a part of some larger building complex of military nature,
as suggested by an iron chain mail (lorica hamata) found under the collapsed west wall of the building.
In the second half of the 2nd century,
probably after the end of the Marcomanni wars (166 – 180) already, there was
a large rebuilding performed at the site. The result was an architectonic complex
consisting of the western longitudinal two-wing building oriented North-East,
and an another building in form of the letter L in the north-eastern part.
The buildings were interconnected through an outer wall into a court. Basement
parts of masonry from this phase consisted of rubble bound by high-quality
lime mortar. Overground parts were probably created through wood-and-earth
constructions with clay or mortar daubing.
At the turn of the 2nd and
3rd centuries the whole complex was sanitated and there was a completely new building
disposition arising at that place utilizing some underground parts of masonry
from previous period. At first they built the core of the future complex, which
consisted of a three-room building with enclosure forming a court on the east
side. In the next stage there was the north wing built within the court, and
this changed to an atrium with a corridor along the inner perimeter, which
mouthed into a separate room in the south-eastern corner.
On the south side of the building there was an another disposition with complicated ground plan with a central court and an interconnecting corridor in the southern part. On the north and east side arose two wings of the building together with six rooms. A luxurious character of this phase is documented above all by the heating through walled channels situated under cast mortar floors. From two hearths (at the north and east walls) total five rooms had been operated in this manner whereby that rooms were at least partly colour-painted. The things stated above together with the fact that a separately standing baths became part of the complex suggest that in this phase we can speak about a civil homestead of the villa rustica type, although, regarding its location within the Barbaricum, also a contemporary stay of a smaller garrison from the mother base in Carnuntum should be considered.
At the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries the building complex in Stupava was abandoned, its inhabitants probably moved out. There are no traces of fire, military attack and the like detected. The abandoned buildings decayed, and some masonry blocks collapsed in the course of a strong earthquake at the end of the 4th century. In terrain there is a part of the fallen down north atrium masonry preserved with two window openings (after restoration they are installed in the rooms of the Archaeological Museum of the Slovak National Museum in Bratislava).
In connection with the existence of building remnants of antique architecture at the mound Kopec the research of Germanic settlement features at several surrounding locations was performed. It came out that before the Romans arrived here the Germanic inhabitants, except for elite, lived on a low economic level. In the fillings of the investigated features there was a minimum of imports found, and poverty can be observed as well with regard to domestic craft production. After the Roman stronghold at the site Kopec was built, the accessibility of imported ware from provinces increased distinctly. In the position Urbárske sedliská at a distance of 3,5 km northwest of Kopec even a jewellery workshop was operating where they processed non-ferrous metals including gold.
As the last finds from the territory of Kopec we have to mention some stray Lombard shards from the end of the 6th century, it means from the time of the original settlement structure being almost totally destroyed as a result of the events during the Migration Period.
1. Frontier of the Roman Empire in the 1st – 4th centuries near Carnuntum
2. The mound Kopec situated at the northern bridgehead, chosen by the Romans for building a stronghold within the Barbaricum
3. Reconstruction of the II phase of the Roman building complex
4. Reconstruction of the III phase during its initial building development
5. III phase after a rebuilding of the court and construction of the eastern part
6. Remnant of an iron chain mail found under a collapsed wall from the I building phase – general view and detail
7. Preserved part of floor channels, with help of which some rooms were heated during the III phase
8. Fragments of colour plasters from the III phase
9. Aureus of the emperor Vespasian (69-79)
10. Varia