Noreia
Cimbri and Teutons defeats.
Cimbri and Teutons victories.Noreia is an ancient lost city in the eastern Alps, most likely in southern Austria. While it is known to have been the capital of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Noricum, the location of Noreia has not been verified by modern researchers.
Some scholars think that Noreia can be identified with the excavated Celtic-Roman settlement on the Magdalensberg in Carinthia, Austria. Others place it in Zollfeld, Carinthia, or in the area of Liebenfels in the Glan river valley. Another possibility, favoured today, is the Gracarca, a hill beside the Klopeiner See in Carinthia, an area where several graves of Celtic princes have been found.
It is also possible that there is more than one location named Noreia. There seem to be two identical entries in the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 4th-century road map. On the map an older Noreia, about 3.5 km in diameter, and a new city of the same name, measuring 7.5 by 3.4 km, can be found in the region of modern Styria. It is more probable, though, that the double entry of a Roman station called Noreia is a copyist's error.
In the neighborhood of the city in 113 BCE Cimbri and Teutons defeated a Roman army at the Battle of Noreia. It is also not known whether the location of the battle and the capital of Noricum are the same city.
Literature
- Karin Erika Haas-Trummer, Noreia. Von der fiktiven Keltensiedlung zum mittelalterlichen Adelssitz. Eine historische und archäologische Spurensuche bis 1600, Wien - Köln - Weimar 2007.
- Stefan Seitschek, "Noreia - Viele Antworten, keine Lösung", Keltische Forschungen 3 (2008), 221-244.
External links
- This article incorporates information from the German Wikipedia.