Maastricht

Maastricht originated as the Roman settlement Traiectum ad Mosam ('ford in the Meuse'), a strategic waypoint on the road between Tongeren and Cologne where the Romans built a bridge confirmed by dendrochronology to the 1st century AD. The settlement included a religious sanctuary with a Jupiter column, a bathhouse built after 100 AD, and commercial infrastructure. Following Frankish raids in 275 AD, Emperor Constantine I ordered massive fortifications measuring 170 by 90 m with round towers and an external moat, forming the nucleus of the medieval city.