TITELBERG
Luxembourg.
Prehistoric oppidum near Pétange, later a Celtic and Roman vicus with many industrial activities. In the 19th c. parts of some Roman houses were found, a lead fragment stamped
FLAVINIOS FLAVOS FEC(it), baths, some fragments of
what may have been a Graeco-Roman sanctuary, and
portions of a Roman (?) fortification wall that had been
known since the 17th c. Later excavations revealed a
narrow, rectangular Roman house of urban type, and
the Celtic settlement. Coins have proved that there was
a prosperous Celtic village before the Romans came: the
coins of 43 civitates attest well-organized trade focusing
on the Titelberg agglomeration.
Since WW II excavations have produced many Roman
objects, mainly of the 2d and 4th c.: walls, houses, cellars, a glass factory, potters' officinae, and coins from all four centuries of Roman occupation. Among the most characteristic objects are an altar dedicated to the Genius
Vosugonum by one Sabinus, a public slave; a huge bronze
ring intended for Mercurius or Mithra; a number of
stone miniatures of votive character in the shape of
houses, fana, sanctuaries, and public buildings; tituli; a
clay statuette signed by FIDELIS; stamped pottery from
many parts of Gaul and Germany. Unfortunately the
mountain is undermined by abandoned galleries which
make stratigraphic research impossible. Finds are in the
Musée d'Histoire et d'Art in Luxembourg.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. M. Ternes,
Répertoire archéologique
du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (1971) I, 153ff; H,
229ff; id.,
Das römische Luxemburg (1974) 165ff; id.,
“Le T. vue par Alexandre Wiltheim,”
Kohrspronk 3
(1974) 7-32, with bibl.
C. M. TERNES
