Temple area on the Pfaffenberg

A special treasure has been lost forever.  In Roman times one of the few hilltop shrines north of the Alps (with a temple area and sacred amphitheatre) stood where today’s quarry in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg is now situated.

The Pfaffenberg in Hainburg/Bad Deutsch-Altenburg became a hill shrine as soon as the Roman city of Carnuntum was founded.  This followed the rules of ancient urbanization and in Carnuntum’s case the example set by Rome, where the temple area for Iuppiter Optimus Maximus was erected on the mons Capitolinus.  High above the riverbank, Iuppiter now had his seat as protector of the Empire’s border and of Rome’s new large-scale military and administrative base on the Danube limes.

The conversion of the Pfaffenberg to a hill shrine began with the founding of the Roman legionary city and the military camp around the middle of the 1st century AD.   The hill was probably known by the name of mons Iovis or mons Karnuntinus.

It is characteristic that the oldest shrine found on the Pfaffenberg has been established as dating from the middle of the 1st century AD and dedicated to the goddess of victory, Victoria.  This expressed the successful ending of a political act, with a strong military emphasis, and worshipped the Imperial genius’s personal strength: victory.  The picture of Victoria on the globe is typically linked within the sanctuary on the Pfaffenberg with that of Iuppiter on his throne.

The temple area has been scientifically evaluated by extensive excavations.  It is the largest of its kind that we know of in the province of Pannonia. Thousands of finds – inscriptions, sculptures, bases of reliefs, shrines, architectural work-pieces, ritual objects and many, many more – enable a relatively exact reconstruction of the buildings and of the cult despite a massive process of destruction.  Two Iuppiter temples, Imperial and Iuppiter pillars were erected in the 1^st and 2^nd centuries AD following Roman examples.  The shrines and monuments erected in the sanctuary were without exception dedicated to the national gods Iuppiter Optimus Maximus and Victoria.  Thus the political objectives put on display (with the help of religion and cults) on the northern border of the Empire became a mirror image of the capital Rome.