Burgstelle Obere Heidenburg

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Burgstelle Obere Heidenburg, also known as the Römerwarte, is a former late Roman watch post situated on a hill at 557 m above sea level, in the municipality of Nürensdorf (canton of Zurich). Built at the end of the 4th century, probably under Valentinian I according to the small finds, it formed a pair of surveillance posts with the Basse Heidenburg, about 300 m to the south-west, along the late antique road linking Baden and Winterthur. Reported around the mid-19th century by Ferdinand Keller, the site was first interpreted as a Celtic refuge, a reading revised in the 1930s. A detailed survey by the Zurich cantonal archaeology service in 2014 confirmed reuse in the Middle Ages, when the structure was remodelled as a motte, probably for a seigneurial tower or fortified house. No masonry remains survive: the structure, originally square in plan, now appears as a central platform surrounded by a nearly circular rampart and ditch, about 30 m in diameter.