Bay of Kiel
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Bay of Kiel (German: Kieler Bucht; Polish: Zatoka Kilońska) is a basin in the south-western Baltic Sea, off the shores of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany and the islands of Denmark. It is connected with the Bay of Mecklenburg in the east, Little Belt in the northwest, and Great Belt in the North.
Maritime traffic entering or leaving the Baltic through the two Belts must enter the bay. Once in, through traffic to the Baltic passes through another strait, the Fehmarn Belt, into the Bay of Mecklenburg, which opens out into the Baltic Sea. In the other direction, traffic can either pass northward through the Great Belt, keeping “Long Island”, Langeland, on the port side, or enter the Kiel Fjord and traverse the Kiel Canal directly to the mouth of the Elbe river and the North Sea. The end of the Kiel fjord is totally occupied by the very large German city of Kiel.
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[edit] Geography
The southwest shore of the bay is the coast of Schleswig-Holstein. From the latter drains the Schlei inlet, actually a brackish estuary, at the head of which is the city named after it, Schleswig. In that coast also are two other smaller bays: the Eckernförde Bay and the Flensburg Fjord. In the north are the Danish islands of Als, Ærø and Langeland.
[edit] Kiel Fjord
The fjord, projecting from the bay to the south, is about 17 km long and 1 km wide at its narrowest point. The strategic location was not lost on the founders of Holstein, of which Kiel was intended to be a major city. It became a prolific shipyard, which made it a prime target of allied bombing in WWII. Before the foundation of Kiel in 1242 and the construction of a walled city there, the region could not have escaped settlement, especially by the Vikings. Any archaeological trace of them, however, either lies under the city or was disturbed long ago.
[edit] Eckernförde Bay
The bay is about 16 km long and turns at the mouth, with the south bank on approximately ten km of the Bay of Kiel. The border with Kiel Fjord is at Bülker lighthouse. The once forest-rich peninsula between Kiel Fjord and Eckernförde Bay formed the borderland between the Germans and/or Saxons and the Danes in the Middle Ages. It was termed the Danish Wold. North of Eckernförde Bay is the Schwansen region, at the end of the bay the City Eckernförde.
[edit] Schlei
The 42-km Schlei forms the border between the historical regions Angeln and Schwansen.
[edit] Flensburg Fjord
Flensburg Fjord is approximately 50 km long. It forms part of the border between Germany and Denmark and marks north border of Angeln.
[edit] Antiquity
[edit] The founding of Kiel at Kiel
It is generally agreed, the name of the city was taken from the name of the geographic location, which certainly included the fjord, and probably the bay as well. Count Adolph IV of Schauenburg founded Holstein by planting a number of fortified cities there: Oldenburg in 1233, Plön in 1236, Itzehohe in 1238, Oldeslohe in 1238, Kiel in 1242 and Neustadt in 1244. He became a monk at Kiel in 1236, leaving the office to his son, Johann I. According to the city charter given to him, the city was named Holstenburg. The population insisted on calling it Kiel, which must have been a pre-existing name.
[edit] Kiel and Pliny
There is a tantalizing piece of possible evidence of the use of the name in antiquity. Pliny (Book IV.97) is describing the Kattegat and the large number of islands in it, the most famous being Scandinavia. Then,
- ”quidam haec … tradunt sinum Cylipenum vocari, et in ostio insulam Latrim, mox alterum sinum Lagnum conterminum Cimbris.”
- ”Some report that there is a bay called Cylipenus and an island, Latris, at its mouth, followed by another bay, Lagnus, coterminous with the Cimbri.”
Locations of the bay with its island have been hypothesized as far east as Riga, but Pliny clearly says that it was coterminous with the Cimbri, and the latter were certainly located in Jutland. The Cyli- in Cylipenus is most likely to be Kiel, although whether the bay, the fjord, or both are meant is uncertain. Latris may be a translation into Latin of Langeland, based on the use of the adjective, latus, “wide”, for long. The Romans would have seen it as a wide island. Lagnus must be the Bay of Mecklenburg, or of Lübeck, or both.
Admiral Pliny tells us that the Romans kept a military presence in Denmark, which is contrary to what we are accustomed to thinking about their relationship to the ancient Germanics. He states that the Roman military had intelligence of 23 islands, including Bornholm. Beyond that he isn’t sure. The presence need not have been imposed by the Romans. It may have been simply naval stations permitted by treaty with the Cimbri. Perhaps the first shipyards of Kiel were Roman, but this is only speculation.
[edit] The name, Kiel
The current population of Kiel takes a great interest in their name, folk-etymologizing it from modern German words, with English speakers throwing in Old English, as the Anglo-saxons were there in antiquity. Perhaps Kiel is a wedge, German Keil, if you see the fjord as one. The shape of the estuary permits almost any interpretation. According to Julius Pokorny, the Proto-Indo-European root in that case would be *ĝei-, “sprout.” Norwegian keila from the same root is a narrow bay, which would be Kiel Fjord. The sense could be a branch of the waters, a springing or sprouting of waters, a splitting or wedge, etc.
On the other hand perhaps German Kehle, “throat”, “channel” or “gutter” is the right word, or Kiel, our keel. In that case the root would be *gel- or *gwel-, “devour”. A number of senses are possible: a throat of some sort or a mouth, or a mouth-like projection, or a keel-shaped body of water.
The “mouth” idea points to a possible mythologization. We know the Codanus (Kattegat) is the anus. Perhaps the Danish waters are to be regarded as a living animal, such as a cat, with an intake or mouth in the Bay of Kiel and outflow or anus in the Kattegat. Such a metaphor might perhaps be the shadow of a Mesolithic myth. Perhaps the name was inherited from pre-Indo-European times and was folk-etymologized by Germanics and Romans. Until more evidence turns up, folk-etymologization is likely to continue.
