Kiel (dpa/lno) – The legendary lost trading post Rungholt in the North Frisian Wadden Sea has inspired people’s imaginations for centuries. In a joint project, researchers have now located Rungholt Church, the State Archaeological Office, the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archeology and the Universities of Kiel and Mainz reported on Tuesday. According to the researchers, this clarified a more than 100-year-old research question.
In May, a team at Hallig Südfall recorded a previously unknown two-kilometer long medieval ridge, that is, mounds of artificial settlements, through geophysical work. The institutions concerned said that one of these terebs shows structures that can undoubtedly be interpreted as the foundations of a church measuring 40 by 15 meters. Targeted excavations and excavations would have given the first insights into the structure and foundations of the sacred building.
“This places the find in the great churches of North Friesland,” said archaeologist Bentey Sven Majczak of the distinguished “Roots” collection of Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. His colleague Ruth Blankenfeldt of the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archeology said: “The special feature of the find lies in the importance of the church as the center of a settlement structure, the size of which must be interpreted as a parish with a superior function.”
According to the information, the team has so far found 54 terra, systematic drainage systems, a sea dam with Sielhafen, in addition to the large main church, two smaller ones in an area of more than ten square kilometers. “Around Hallig-Sudvoll and on other tidal flats, remnants of medieval settlements have been badly eroded and can often only be detected as a negative footprint,” said Hannah Hadler of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. This is also evident in the area around Kirchwarft.
In the late Middle Ages, Rungholt was a settlement on the Wadden Sea near Hallig Südfall. The trading post fell victim to a devastating storm in 1362, the “Groten Mandränke”. It is considered the hour of the birth of North Frisia in its current form. It separated the peninsulas from the mainland and cut off what was then the Strand Island.
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