Lindenhof Hill - History

History

At the flat shore of Lake Zurich, we find Neolithic and Bronze Age (4500 to 850 BC) lakeside settlements, such as Kleiner Hafner and Grosser Hafner (both small former islands), near Bauschänzli (Zurich City hall), Alpenpuai (Bürkliplatz) and Lindenhof. Lindenhof was largely surrounded by water: Until the early medieval area, neighboring Münsterhof (Fraumünster abbey square) was a swampy, by the Sihl river flooded hollow, so that Lindenhof hill was an optimal location for early probably fortified settlements. Middle bronze age (1500 BC) artefacts were found near Limmat (Schipfe). For the 1st century BC (La Tène culture) archaeologists found remains of a Celtic settlement, a so-called oppidum, whose remains were found in archaeological campaigns in the years 1989, 1997, 2004 and 2007 on Lindenhof and Rennweg.

In 15 BC, Augustus' stepsons Drusus and Tiberius (later Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero 14 to 37 AD) integrated the territory on the left side of Lake Zurich into the Roman provinces Raetia and Germania Superior. Several stone buildings from the Roman period were located on and surrounding the hill. It was part of the small vicus Turicum, located on both sides of the Limmat and connected by a Roman bridge located near the present Rathausbrücke. Turicum, Zurich's Roman and maybe Celtic name, is engraved on a 2nd-century tombstone of a little boy. It was found on May 15, 1747, and refers to the Roman STA(tio) TUR(i)CEN(sis). The tombstone is located in the Swiss National Museum; a copy is integrated in the Lindenhof wall at Pfalzgasse, leading to St. Peter church.

Using the advantage of topography, the Roman military built a citadel on top of the hill in the years of the Roman emperor Valentinian I (364–375), to defend migrations from the North by the Alamanni. 4500 m² large, it was fitted with 10 towers and two meter wide walls.