Turicum was a Gallo-Roman vicus at the lower end of Lake Zurich, and precursor of the city of Zurich. It was situated within the Roman province of Germania Superior and near the border to the province of Raetia; there was a tax-collecting point for goods traffic on the waterway Walensee–Obersee-Lake Zurich–Limmat–Aare–Rhine.
Prehistory and Celtic Oppidum Lindenhof
Neolithic pile dwellings were located in the then swamp area between Limmat and
Lake Zurich around the present Sechseläutenplatz plaza. These were built on piles to protect the inhabitants against occasional flooding by the rivers
Sihl,
Linth and Jona.
Three settlements were located in Enge, a locality of the municipality of Zurich: Zürich–Enge Alpenquai and
Kleiner Hafner on then islands or peninsulas on the effluence of the Limmat, and
Grosser Hafner,
[Beat Eberschweiler: Schädelreste, Kopeken und Radar: Vielfältige Aufgaben für die Zürcher Tauchequipe IV. In: NAU 8/2001. Amt für Städtebau der Stadt Zürich, Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Unterwasserarchäologie / Labor für Dendrochronologie. Zürich 2001.] as well as the settlement
Kleiner Hafner near the present Sechseläutenplatz plaza on the effluence of the Limmat on Lake Zurich lake shore, all within an area of about some away of the core of the Celtic
Oppidum respectively the Roman era
Vicus.
Probably in the first 1st century BC or even much earlier, the Celts settled on and around the Lindenhof hill. For the 1st century BC La Tène culture, archaeologists excavated individual and aerial finds of the Celtic Oppidum whose remains were discovered in archaeological campaigns in the years 1989, 1997, 2004 and 2007,
Geography and area of the Roman settlement
The core of the Helvetic and Roman settlement was the
Lindenhof hill in the present
Altstadt of the modern city of Zurich. The
moraine hill was the site of the prehistoric settlements where the modern city has developed. The hilltop area dominates the city of Zurich alongside the eastern Limmat riverbank, and its northern slope called
Sihlbühl towards the former
Sihl delta marked the northern boundary of the Helvetic and Roman settlement – where the structures of the medieval Oetenbach Nunnery, Waisenhaus Zürich and later the Urania Sternwarte were erected at the present
Uraniastrasse, and therefore important historical archaeological excavations never were done. To the south, at the St. Peter church hill, there was another cultic construction towards Münsterhof, and in the west the settlement was bounded by the present Rennweg–Bahnhofstrasse lanes and the Münzplatz plaza.
The largely flattened Lindenhof area elevates at above sea level, and rises about above the level of the Limmat at the Schipfe–Limmatquai area in the west; probably some Roman buildings were built at the site of the Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten on the other riverbank, and the Roman settlement may stretched towards the present Münsterbrücke which is crossing the Limmat between Grossmünster (remains of graves) and Wasserkirche, and the Münsterhof plaza.
Roman Vicus
Founding
The earliest record of the town's name is preserved on the 2nd-century tombstone found in 1747 AD on the Lindenhof hill, referring to the Roman
Vicus as "STA(tio) TUR(i)CEN(sis)" as customs station for goods going to and coming from Italy at the same location as the Celtic
Oppidum. The
Vicus was founded probably around 15 BC, but there are no written sources. The Roman settlement first belonged to the province of
Gallia Belgica, and to
Germania Superior from AD 90. Roman Turicum was not fortified in the beginning, but there was a small garrison at the tax-collecting point, downstream of the lake respectively Limmat nearby the Münsterhof plaza where the goods were loaded between small river boats on the Limmat and larger ships on Lake Zurich for the transport on the water route.
1st to late 4th century
Commercial and residential buildings were erected in the vicinity of the Lindenhof hill, in later times,
Villa rustica were established in the present suburban districts. At the present Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten at Limmatquai opposite of the Lindenhof hill, the area was stabilized with embankments; some of these mounds date back to the Roman settlement era.
Due to its location on Lake Zurich lake shore at the effluence of the Limmat, where the goods had to be reloaded onto riverboats, and although Turicum was not situated alongside an important Roman main road, the water route was essential for the Roman army in the present Western and Northeastern Switzerland. Not yet archaeologically proven but suggested by historians, the very first construction of the present Münsterbrücke Limmat crossing was built in the Roman era, when the present
Weinplatz square was the former civilian harbour of the Celtic-Roman
Turicum, and so the term
Weinplatz (literally
wine plaza) has an ancient meaning.
As a Vicus, Turicum was not secured by town walls, but the buildings grouped around the customs station ( Quadragesima Galliarum) where the clearance of goods and travelers prior to transfer between the provinces of Gallia Belgica and Raetia took place, mainly on the water route (from and to the Roman heartland over the mountain passes of the Swiss Alps) Walensee-Obersee-Lake Zurich passing Centum Prata (Kempraten) towards the Limmat, Aare and Rhine. Goods and travelers, probably also towards Vitudurum (Winterthur), were handled at the Vicus before crossing the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica and Germania Superior, and transferred on the Roman road between Vindonissa (Windisch) probably via Irgenhausen Castrum and Curia Raetorum (Chur). In Turicum a duty of 2.5% ( Quadragesima Galliarum) was levied.
In 70/75 AD a harbor district rose on the newly acquired lands on the Limmat riverbank at the foot of Lindenhof (Schipfe–Weinplatz), and the settlement area was extended on the right bank of the Limmat at the present Limmatquai. Public buildings made of stone and paved roads were built.
At the site of the present Weinplatz towards St. Peterhofstatt the remains of remarkable 2nd to 4th century AD Thermae were excavated.
Grosser Hafner island sanctuary
An island sanctuary of the Helvetii in connection with settlement the preceding Oppidi Lindenhof and the 1st century BC settlement at the Lindenhof hill may have probably go back to the La Tène culture. During the reign of Emperor Hadrian, a round wooden temple as an island sanctuary was built on the
Grosser Hafner island, which allows a dendrochronological dating. The building was erected in 122 AD, and consisted of oak piles driven deep into the lake bottom. It was surrounded probably with walls made of perishable materials, which formed a circle of seven meters in diameter. The rotunda is located on the former Neolithic island settlement, about away from the Roman
Vicus. The archaeological material indicates that the facility was used up in the 3rd century AD, even up in the 4th century AD by the Gallo-Roman population. On the one hand, the interpretation as the temple is based on the insularity and the design, on the other hand on finds of coins; the majority of the now nearly 90 coins probably are from a so far not proven predecessor building, probably from the third quarter of the 1st century AD. There are also the fragments of bar tiles of maybe another Roman building. On occasion of diving operations from 1998 to 2001 almost of tile fragments are ensured, and up to 40 coins and several pottery shards, as well as rectangular post hole.
Gallo-Roman era
The
Alamanni settled, probably from the 5th century when the Roman military retreated back to Italy, but the Roman castle persisted into the 7th century and was reinforced by the
Ottonian dynasty, but was broken around 1218 AD. To date, few archaeological remains of the Roman Zurich could be excavated systematically because the remains of the settlement are hidden under the densely built-up core of the modern city of Zurich. Archaeologically excavated are the remains of public baths (Thermengasse), graves and traces of craft enterprises, residential buildings, as well as everyday objects and jewelry, but also of cult equipment.
Archaeological exploration
Archaeological excavations usually were executed on occasion of renewals of present buildings at Rennweg 5/7 (settlement structures), Fortunagasse 28/Rennweg 38 and Oetenbachgasse 5–9 (Celtic trench and settlement structures), Münzplatz (settlement structures), Lindenhof hill (Celtic, Roman and medieval settlement structures), Rennweg 35 (Celtic spot plates (
Tüpfelplatten) and settlement structures), the Limmat (bars) and Bürkliplatz-Bahnhofstrasse (Celtic Potin coins), all representing the Helvetii and early Roman settlement.
Focussed on the Gallo-Roman era, archaeological explorations were executed at Weinplatz 3/4/5 and Storchengasse 23 (harbour area and thermae), Storchengasse 13 (cultic building) and neighbored Fortunagasse 28/Rennweg 38 (maybe a hostel) and gold jewellery at the Sihlbühl area, Poststrasse/Zentralhof at Münsterhof (probably early medieval graves), and the island sanctuary (
Rundtempel) on the former
Grosser Hafner island.
Some of the finds are shown in situ at the Thermengasse lane (Weinplatz towards St. Peterhofstatt), and in the so-called Lindenhofkeller on the Lindenhof hill where the Celtii, Gallo-Roman and Carolinum walls are shown and explained by information boards by personal demand at Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich opposite of the Grimmenturm respectively Theater Neumarkt buildings (Neumarkt).
Protection
The hillside area of the
Lindenhof hill is listed as in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance – including the remains of its prehistoric, Roman and medieval settlements respectively structures – as a
Class A object of national importance.
Hence, the area is provided as a historical site under federal protection, within the meaning of the Swiss Federal Act on the nature and cultural heritage (German: Bundesgesetz über den Natur- und Heimatschutz NHG) of 1 July 1966. Unauthorised researching and purposeful gathering of findings represent a criminal offence according to Art. 24.
Name
The ancient name
Turicum, along with the indication of a Roman customhouse, is first attested in the
epitaph for Lucius Aelius Urbicus, an infant son of the p(rae)p(ositus) sta(tionis) Turicen(sis), "head of the toll-station at Zurich",
that was found on
Lindenhof hill in 1747 and dates from 185/200 AD.
[Regula Frei-Stolba/Reinhold Kaiser & al., Die Römische Zeit, in: Geschichte des Kantons Zürich, vol. 1: Frühzeit bis Spätmittelalter, Zürich 1995, .]
The place name reappears in the Early Middle Ages as Turicum, Turico, Doricum, Torico, Turigo, Turegum, and in its Old High German forms Ziurichi, Zurih,[ortsnamen.ch s. v. Zürich.] with regularly shifted consonants; it is unanimously seen as a Gaulish language formation, * Turikon, though vowel quantities and accentuation have been a matter of debate: Stress on the second syllable in Romansh language Turitg, Turi, as well as in the partially reshaped Italian language form Zurigo, have been taken as evidence establishing originally long -ī-, that would have drawn the accent to the Penultimate rule in Latin pronunciation; the constituting elements of the toponym have been identified as a Celtic languages personal name Tūros and a suffix -īko- forming relational adjectives.[Andres Kristol, Zürich = Tūrḗgum ou Tū́rĕgum ?, in: Nouvelle revue d’onomastique 47–48 (2007), p. 223 ff.][Andres Kristol (ed.), Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses DTS – Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen LSG – Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri DTS, Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Wien 2005, , and Éditions Payot, Lausanne 2005, , p. 992 f.] This analysis has been contested by arguing that the spelling Turegum, widely attested in documents from the 9th century onward, seems to reflect lenition of the intervocalic stop consonant, as well as lowering of short Latin ĭ to ĕ, both common to most Western Romance languages, and that numerous other place names of Celtic origin, as Autricum, Avaricum or Aventicum, are undoubtedly formed with a suffix -ĭko-, and are usually derived from a hydronym; thus the basis of Turicum supposedly being Turos or Tura, should rather be an ancient name of one of the watercourses around Lindenhof hill, either a distributary of the Sihl river, or possibly the Limmat river. The Romansh language and Italian forms may likely have been taken from medieval written records, with the accent determined by analogy within the borrowing languages, e. g. Turitg after amitg, 'friend', which bears its stress on the second syllable, too.[Wulf Müller, Túricum – Turegum – Zürich, in: Albrecht Greule/Stefan Hackl (edd.), Der Südwesten im Spiegel der Namen. Gedenkschrift für Lutz Reichardt, Stuttgart 2011, p. 185 ff.][Wulf Müller, Turegum = Zürich, in: Nouvelle revue d’onomastique 47–48 (2007), p. 221 f.][Manfred Niemeyer (ed.), Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch, Berlin/Boston 2012, p. 719.] The diverging evolution of several place names of Gaulish origin, as Bourges < Bitúriges, Berry-Bouy < Bituríges; Condes < Cóndate, Condé < Condáte, suggests that shifting accent and unsettled vowel quantity may not have been exceptional.[Pierre-Yves Lambert, La langue Gauloise. Description linguistique, commentaire d’inscriptions choisies, Paris 1994, p. 46.]
See also
Sources
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Margrit Balmer: Zürich in der Spätlatène- und frühen Kaiserzeit. Vom keltischen Oppidum zum römischen Vicus Turicum. In: Monographien der Kantonsarchäologie Zürich 39, Hochbaudepartement/Amt für Städtebau/Stadtarchäologie (Hrsg.), Fotorotar-Verlag, Zürich und Egg 2009, .
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Peter J. Suter, Helmut Schlichtherle et al.: Pfahlbauten – Palafittes – Palafitte. Palafittes, Biel 2009, .
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Dölf Wild et al.: Stadtmauern. Ein neues Bild der Stadtbefestigung Zürich. Schrift zur Ausstellung im Haus zum Rech, Zürich 6. Februar bis 30. April 2004. In: Stadtgeschichte und Städtebau in Zürich. Schriften zur Archäologie, Denkmalpflege und Stadtplanung. Volume 5. Werd-Verlag, Zürich 2004, .
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Beat Eberschweiler: Ur- und frühgeschichtliche Verkehrswege über den Zürichsee: Erste Ergebnisse aus den Taucharchäologischen Untersuchungen beim Seedamm. In: Mitteilungen des Historischen Vereins des Kantons Schwyz, Volume 96, Schwyz 2004.
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Margrit Balmer, Stefanie Martin-Kilcher, Dölf Wild: Kelten in Zürich. Der Ursprung der Stadt in neuem Licht - Stadtgeschichte und Städtebau in Zürich. In: Schriften zu Archäologie, Denkmalpflege und Stadtplanung, Voluma 2. Published by Amt für Städtebau der Stadt Zürich, Zürich 2001, .* Jürg E. Schneider, Walter Ulrich Guyan, Andreas Zürcher: Turicum, Vitudurum, Iuliomagus = Zürich, Winterthur und Schleitheim: drei römische Siedlungen in der Ostschweiz. Ergänzte Sonderauflage, Werd-Verlag, Zürich 1988, .
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Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich: Kleine Zürcher Verfassungsgeschichte 1218–2000. Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Direktion der Justiz und des Innern auf den Tag der Konstituierung des Zürcher Verfassungsrates am 13. September 2000. Chronos, Zürich 2000, .
