Ancient site · Settlement
Heuneburg
The Heuneburg is a hillfort above the Danube in southern Germany and one of the most important early Celtic centres of the Hallstatt period. Around 600 BCE its builders replaced a timber wall with a whitewashed mudbrick wall on stone foundations, a Mediterranean technique unknown elsewhere north of the Alps.
Valuable imported goods show trade with the Mediterranean world. Large burial mounds and an outer town surround it. It has been called the oldest city north of the Alps.
- Dates
- 7th–5th century BCE (mudbrick wall c. 600 BCE)
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 48.09° N, 9.41° E
How we know
The Celts here left no writing; excavation tells its story, and the idea that it was the town of Pyrene mentioned by the Greek writer Herodotus is only a possibility.
Nearby sites
- Ötzi the Iceman (find site) died c. 3230 BCE
- Hallstatt salt mines and cemetery c. 1200–350 BCE (prehistoric mining)
- Nebra sky disc find site (Mittelberg) disc buried c. 1600 BCE
- Pont du Gard 1st century CE; used perhaps until the 6th century
- Pantheon, Rome c. 126 CE; a church since 609
- Colosseum 72–80 CE; games until the 6th century
Related
- Hallstatt culture archaeological culture
- The world in 700 BCE: The Assyrian Colossus chapter