Waldgirmes: Roman civilian city east of the Rhine abandoned after Teutoburg

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Key facts

• A Roman civilian settlement was founded around 4 BC near the modern village of Waldgirmes, about 100 km east of the Rhine in central Germany, shortly after Roman troops reached the Elbe.
• The town was protected by a timber palisade and at least two lines of ditches but had no permanent garrison.
• The settlement was laid out on a classic Roman grid of streets graded to drain into central ditches, with warehouses, taverns, and atrium-style houses, some connected to a city aqueduct via lead water pipes.
• Excavators found imported Mediterranean glass, pottery, and other goods.
• Fragments of a gilded equestrian statue of Augustus, once set on a pedestal of local stone at the center of the forum, were recovered along with four other bronze statues facing a basilica and stoas with wooden columns.
• The city was abandoned shortly after AD 9 following the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, when inhabitants withdrew with legions back to the Rhine; the buildings were burned.
• The head of Augustus's equestrian statue was thrown down a well.
• Fragments of beams and planks preserved by waterlogged soil allowed dating via dendrochronology.
• The site was accidentally rediscovered in 1990.

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