On to the Teutoburger Wald

After a short rest in the cafeteria, we got into the car again for a trip of about another 120 km to Kalkriese. That museum, on the ground of Varus' troops' "Last Stand" (it’is widely thought to be that, though not by everyone), is not exactly in Kalkriese itself, but a bit outside the village on the road from Bramsche to Minden, near to the small village of Venne.

The area is very beautiful, very hilly and wooded (well, what would you expect? This is supposed to be the Teutoburger Wald), so we nearly missed the turn to the museum. The trees were in front of it!

The museum at that time was housed in some old farm buildings, but a new and improved museum has since opened in 2002 in a new building next door. At the time we were there, construction was already well underway and a look-out tower enabled me to take some pictures of the area.

The Kalkriese area is located on the outskirts of a hilly region, to the left (south) of the photo. Just to the right (north) was the edge of a large marshy area, so the area actually on the picture is a natural bottleneck area on the east-west route, through which Varus' army had no choice but to go.

The footpath seen on the photo is supposed to be the route the remnants of the legions took to their doom. Invisible from this distance is the path's paving of iron plates, of which some are inscribed with texts from Florus, Paterculus, Tacitus and Dio. It leads into the "time-warp" area in the middle. That area has been reconstructed as it was nearly 2000 years ago, with an earthen wall and original plant life.

During excavations (the entire open area has been dug up, and while we were there, a new dig was going on in the treeline at the top of the left-hand picture), traces of the wall were found along the edge of the wooded area. To mark that line, iron poles have been planted along the line. These are visible along the border of the yellow and mown grass.

Before checking out the outside area, we went into the museum and were immediately asked if we'd like a guided tour. I'm normally no fan of guided tours -- I'm either bored because they take too long, or I'm biting my tongue to not correct the guide. And this one was going to be in German! Nevertheless, we agreed to join the tour, which would start an hour later. Since it was great weather and we had about one and a half days to look over the (as we now realized) small museum and park area, we decided to wait on the terrace, enjoying a drink in the sun (it was 30°C that day).

The tour guide was a history student at Münster University, and sure enough, he re-enacts too. In a very enthusiastic manner, he guided us through the museum and park, starting with the general prelude of Roman campaigns in north-western Germany and the Netherlands. After that, he attempted to illustrate the picture of a Roman army on the move.

For that purpose the museum had a very effective display: 6000 chess pawns had been set in rows of six, creating a line of at least 6 meters long, suggesting that Varus' army of three legions, enlarged further with auxiliaries, servants, camp followers, animals, et cetera, would have stretched along for dozens of kilometres.

The Kalkriese museum itself is not very large, though the display will undoubtedly be bigger and improved when they relocate into their new building in the spring of 2002.

Highlight and symbol of the museum is the Kalkriese-facemask, or at least the iron core of it (photos of Mask and Lorica fragment are ©Museum Kalkriese). The silver layer has been removed. According to the guide, this was because the Germans may have believed the owner's soul was attached to the mask. So by removing only the outer layer, they had the silver, but not the soul to harass them.

Other points of interest were a crestholder, found interlinked with a human jaw. This might indicate that the bones and parts of equipment strewn around the battlefield had been hurriedly collected and put into a burial pit, perhaps by Germanicus' troops in 14 CE. Tools, lorica parts and the complete skeleton of a mule still in its harness, have also been dug up and are on display.

After the tour through the museum building, we were taken outside by the guide, who oriented us to the terrain. The Kalkrieser Berg (mountain) is hardly visible because of the treeline. And besides, the "Berg" is clearly a term given by lowcountry people, in the way that Dutchmen call anything over 50 meters in height a mountain!

Standing on that field, though, we could picture the bottleneck effect really well, with the swamps on the north and the thickly forested hills to the south.

After the tour, the museum was closing, so we decided to find a place to eat and a hotel. After some searching, we ended up in a three-star family hotel in Vehrte, about 10 kilometers from Kalkriese. It was very affordable and well kept, and despite the heat we slept well.
We had decided to go back to Kalkriese in the morning, to plunder the museum shop and check out the "timewarp" zone.

In that zone, the visitors descend to the ground level of the battle via a sloping path, to a ground level about two meters below the current one. On the metal siding, there were plaques with additional information about the archaeology of the area. Among other things, the plaques demonstrated how the wall flattened out through the ages and how the wall can still be traced in the ground.

In the zone itself is a reconstruction of a short bit of the wall with markers in the ground where things were found. That famous face mask, for instance, was found right in front of the wall on the Roman side. The mule was dug up there as well, indicating that perhaps the Romans had tried to block the gates in the wall with their carts.

Having thoroughly soaked up the historic ambiance, we'd decided we had about seen all there is to see in Kalkriese. We packed up, drove to Osnabrück, strolled around there for a while and then went home.
As the French Michelin guides would say, "Kalkriese et Haltern, ça vaut le detour!" (Kalkriese and Haltern are worth a detour). Forget detour -- it's worth a trip!