Way back in 52 BC, ancient Roman leader Julius Caesar used a variety of stakes and ditches to defend his army from the Gallic attackers in what is now central France. Over two millennia later, archaeologists have found the first preserved samples of defensive stakes that are similar. These stakes may have protected a silver mine in the past.
Ancient Roman Camp
According to Live Science, this unexpected discovery was made by a team of students in Bad Ems. This is halfway between Mainz and Bonn in Germany, which is the Roman Empire's former northern border.
Since the late 19th century, archaeologists have been working within the Bad Ems. Earlier excavations led to the discovery of processed silver oil, foundations of walls, and metal slag. Because of this, researchers thought that these covered smelting activities as early as 200 AD.
However, in 2016, a hunter was able to notice unusual crop formations and mentioned this to archaeologists from the Goethe University. These specialists later discovered that there used to be a Roman camp covering 20 hectares in the area, with around 40 wooden watchtower remains.
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Wooden Spikes Used by Julius Caesar
Led by Frederic Auth, the team of students discovered the wooden spikes within moist soil at Blöskopf Hill. This area also held another recently discovered camp of Romans, which is located around 1.3 miles away from the first one.
ARTnews states that, interestingly, the wooden spike defenses were found on the second-to-last day of the excavations. It was spotted with a 43 CE coin, which serves as proof that the defense structure could not have been built with links to Roman fortifications called Limes. These limes were a border wall that was fortified along the northern Roman Empire.
Ancient Roman Defense Systems
Live Science notes that Tacitus, an ancient Roman historian, shed light on what the forts could have defended. Tacitus notes that Curtius Rufus, one of the Roman governors, attempted silver mining in AD 47. However, he only had little to report.
Nevertheless, Bad Ems had plentiful silver, given that around 200 tons of silver were spotted centuries later. The ancient Romans just did not dig deep enough to find the resources.
There is a possibility that the camp was setup for the Romans to defend themselves from attacks as they were silver mining.
Though the ancient ruler Julius Caesar passed away before the Bad Ems forts were established, his ditch-and-spike defense strategy went beyond his lifetime. Live Science reports that in his book Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar wrote about the forts he established in the Battle of Alesia in France. He wanted the fewest possible soldiers to defend the camp. To do this, he cut down thick branches, sharpened them, and struck them down into trenches. The wooden spikes were fastened deep into the bottom, with the ditch covered with twigs and branches. Caesar wrote that whoever was to walk over them might end up impaled by the wooden spikes.
Artnet reports that excavation and research should go on. Markus Scholz, a Roman archaeology professor from Goethe University, expresses that it is necessary to conduct further research to see if the hypothesis regarding silver mine defenses is indeed correct.
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