Die Rotunde in Broos/Orastie (Kreis Hunedoara)

• Published in: Forschungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde 2011 (54), p.9-38
• Main Author: Pinter, Zeno Karl
• Format: Article
• Language: ger
• Subjects: Archaeology
• ISSN: 0015-7902

During the extensive archaeological researches in the fortress of Orăştie, human habitation remains belonging to the 8th – 9th Centuries were discovered under an earth enclosure with a ditch, a remblai and a palisade. This enclosure was reinforced in the 12th Century by building a rectangular stone tower (donjon) and a centrally planned chapel (rotunda). The chapel had a circular basement with a central column designed to support the vaulted ceiling and a circular floor with a semicircular apse on the East side. It was built in the first half of the 12th Century as a court chapel for a manorial residence. At the beginning of the 13th Century after the arrival of the German colonists a threshold (atrium) was built and the chapel was used as a temporary parish church until a more appropriate church could be ready. After the completion of the Romanesque church the rotunda was used as the cemetery’s chapel and during the 14th Century its walls were reinforced and the chapel became a defense tower for the East side of the stone fortification. At the end of the 18th Century or the beginning of the 19th the chapel was demolished and its basement was used as a lime pit for the construction site of the new Lutheran church.