Jupiter Column
Encyclopedia
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
monument belonging to a type widespread in Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
. Such pillars express the religious beliefs of their time. They were erected in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, mostly near Roman settlements or villas
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
in the Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
provinces. Some examples also occur in Gaul
Gallia
Gallia may refer to:*Gaul , the region of Western Europe occupied by present-day France, Belgium and other neighbouring countries...
and Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
.
The base of the monuments was normally formed by a Viergötterstein (four gods stone), in itself a common monument type, usually depicting Juno
Juno (mythology)
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...
, Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
, Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
and Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
. This would support a Wochengötterstein (a carving depicting the personifications of the seven days of the week), which, in turn, supported a column or pillar, normally decorated with a scale pattern. The column was crowned with a statue of Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
, usually on horseback, trampling a Giant
Gigantes
In Greek mythology, the Giants were the children of Gaia, who was fertilized by the blood of Uranus, after Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus...
(usually depicted as a snake). In some cases (e.g. at Walheim
Walheim
Walheim is a town in the district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany with a considerable viticulture. Besides the village Walheim there are no other places belonging to the municipal area of Walheim.-Geography and climate:...
), the column capital is decorated with four heads, usually interpreted as depictions of the four times of day (morning, mid-day, evening, night). The total height of a Jupiter Column is normally around 4 m, but some examples are taller, e.g. a famous example at Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
with a height of more than 9 m.
The columns in Upper Germany
Germania Superior
Germania Superior , so called for the reason that it lay upstream of Germania Inferior, was a province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany...
normally depict Jupiter defeating a Giant, as described above, and are thus known as Jupitergigantensäulen ("Jupiter-Giant-Columns"). In Lower Germany
Germania Inferior
Germania Inferior was a Roman province located on the left bank of the Rhine, in today's Luxembourg, southern Netherlands, parts of Belgium, and North Rhine-Westphalia left of the Rhine....
, Jupiter is normally depicted enthroned without the Giant; those monuments are commonly described simply as Jupitersäulen ("Jupiter Columns").
The pillars were often placed within a walled enclosure and accompanied by an altar.
No such monument has survived intact. They are known from excavated finds or from secondary use as spolia
Spolia
Spolia is a modern art-historical term used to describe the re-use of earlier building material or decorative sculpture on new monuments...
, e.g. in Christian churches. Recently, reconstructions of some Jupiter Columns have been erected at or near where they were found, e.g. in Ladenburg
Ladenburg
Ladenburg is a town in the district of Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Neckar, 10 km east of Mannheim, and 10 km northwest of Heidelberg.It has an old town from the Late Middle Ages...
, Obernburg
Obernburg
Obernburg am Main is a town in the Miltenberg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany.- Location :...
, Benningen am Neckar
Benningen am Neckar
Benningen is a municipality in the district of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.- History :By 85 AD, the Neckar-Odenwald line was the frontier of the Roman Empire. The Romans built the Limes Germanicus to secure this border. Along the border they built fortifications in regular...
, Sinsheim
Sinsheim
Sinsheim is a town in southwestern Germany, in the Rhine Neckar Area of the state Baden-Württemberg about 22 kilometers southeast of Heidelberg and about 28 kilometers northwest of Heilbronn in the district Rhein-Neckar. It consists of a city center and 11 suburbs with a total population of 35,605...
, Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and near the Saalburg
Saalburg
The Saalburg is a Roman fort located on the Taunus ridge northwest of Bad Homburg, Hesse, Germany. It is a Cohort Fort belonging to the Limes Germanicus, the Roman linear border fortification of the German provinces. The Saalburg, located just off the main road roughly halfway between Bad Homburg...
.
According to the historian Greg Woolf, the pillars depict the victory of Jupiter Optimus Maximus over the forces of Chaos
Chaos (mythology)
Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
, the god himself being raised high above the other gods and humankind, but closely linked with them. Woolf sees most such monuments as dedications by individuals.
External links
- Article about Jupitersäulen
- Landeskunde online: Jupitergigantensäulen
- Jupitergigantensäule in Obernburg on the Main