Archaeologists have discovered more than 100 horse skeletons from Roman times during excavations in Stuttgart. The area in Bad Cannstatt is the largest Roman horse ceremony of southern Germany. The horses buried there were once mount animals of a Roman caval unit, which was stationed in a castle on the Hallschlag a few hundred meters away. The find underlines the importance of ancient Bad Cannstatt as a Roman military base.
During the Roman Empire, not only foot troops against opposing armies were used for campaigns, but also mounted soldiers. They had the task of protecting the flanks of the foot troops and spreading the enemies on the side and taking them in the pliers. The riding units used for this, so -called alae, usually included 500 men with their horses. Most of the time, these cavalry soldiers were not Roman citizens, but came from allied peoples or the border regions of the Roman Empire. These auxiliary troops were mainly stationed in the provinces and along the Roman borders.
In Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, too, there was a Roman castle with such border troops from the first century. The fortified military base, together with five other locations, served to secure the Neckar-Odenwald lime and several trade routes. The Castell Cannstatt was one of the most important Roman military locations in today’s southwestern Germany in the first half of the 2nd century. At that time, the castle was also included a Roman caval unit, the ala i scubulorum, together with its probably around 700 horses.
100 Roman horse skeletons
What happened to these Roman military horses after their service is now revealing a discovery of archaeologists from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Stuttgart and the archaeological company Archaeobw. From July 2024, they had carried out excavations in the run -up to a new construction project in an area between Düsseldorfer Straße and Bottroper Straße in Bad Cannstatt. The excavation team bumped into more than 100 skeletons from horses buried there on the approximately 70 by 80 meter area. “The horse bones that have now been discovered were dated to the 2nd century based on the radiocarbon method,” reports the responsible archaeologist Sarah Roth from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments.
The Pferdefriedhof, now exposed, is the largest of its kind in all of southern Germany, as the archaeologists report. How big this ancient “Schindanger” was originally unknown. “It was originally more extensive than the approximately 70 by 80 meter area in which the skeletons were found,” continues Roth. In any case, the Roman Pferdefriedhof was sufficiently distance from Kastell and Siedlung, around 400 meters from the base of the Roman cavalry unit in the Kastell Cannstatt and around 200 meters from the neighboring civil settlement.
Stocking animals of Cannstatter ALA
“Due to the archaeological-historical state of knowledge to the Roman Bad Cannstatt, the horses of the cavalry unit can be assigned, which was stationed on the Hallschlag from around 100 to 150 AD,” explains Roth. “The group with almost 500 riders may have had a total horse stock of at least 700 animals, losses had to be constantly replaced.” The dates and finds show that the mounts of this ala not all died at the same time, for example in a battle or by a plague. “Rather, the animals that either died through illness, injuries or for other reasons are either died during the presence of the ALA in Bad Cannstatt or who did not do their job as a military horse,” explains the archaeologist.
The horses already died were towed individually into flat pits, where they were buried on the side with stretched or bent legs. “If the horse was able to run itself, you will have brought it to the Pferdefriedhof and killed it on site so as not to have to transport the heavy carcass,” says Roth. From the dense but not overlapping placement of the bones, the archaeologists also conclude that the pits that had already been occupied with horse carcasses were marked at the time – this was prevented from encountering carcasses from the soil of the soil.
Horse with grave goods and an accumulated person
Most of the animals found on the Pferdefriedhof were buried in the underground without much lifting, but there were a few exceptions. So one of the horses had been put into the pit to say goodbye and a small oil lamp – actually typical grave goods for a person. “Here we see a particularly close connection between the owner and his horse. Even after around 1800 years, the grief of death of this one animal is still evident,” says Roth. However, less appreciation than this horse was given to a human dead, whose skeleton discovered the archaeologists between the horse graves. It was in a prone and without grave goods in a pit. The archaeologists suspect that this man from the Roman period was an outsider, which was therefore buried far from the regular cemetery of the Roman settlement.
Overall, the newly discovered Pferdefriedhof offers archaeologists the rare opportunity to gain a more detailed insight into the use of horse’s use of the Roman Army. They are already planning further archaeozoological studies that are intended to provide more information about gender, age, size and origin of the Roman mounts. The team could also gain information about the stress as mounts, possible diseases and the cause of death of the horses by supplementary analyzes of the bones.
Source: State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in the Stuttgart/ Archeoobw regional council