home   :    index    :    ancient Rome    :      Germania Inferior      :     article by Jona Lendering ©

Utrecht-Leidsche Rijn


Detail of map of Germania Inferior. Design Jona Lendering.
The location of Vleuten (number 10)
Germania inferior: small province of the Roman empire, situated along the Lower Rhine. This webpage is part of a series of short descriptions of villages in Germania inferior. An overview can be found here.

The ancient name of the fort at Utrecht-Leidsche Rijn (also known as Vleuten) is not known. It guarded a small river that joined the Rhine at this place. The civil settlement in the neighborhood has been excavated, with the remains of what may once have been a bathhouse. It seems that the fort offered accommodation to a naval unit (cohors I Classica pia fidelis).

Ancient-Warfare.com, the online home of Ancient Warfare magazine


At the moment, the city of Utrecht is expanding to the west, where 35,000 houses are built, and archaeologists have been researching the area since 1996. To the west of the fort, they have discovered the ancient military road and watchtowers (in 2002-2003), which date back to the mid-first century and were reconstructed from stone in the second half of the second or first half of the third century. The original, wooden towers may have been part of the large building project of the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (47), which in turn belongs to the grand project of the Claudian army reforms.
De Meern-1 at the NISA, Lelystad (Holland). Photo Marco Prins.
De Meern-1 at the NISA (Lelystad, Holland)

Among the other recent discoveries are two large barges, which were sensationally well preserved. The first one, 25 meters long and made of local wood, is currently at the Dutch Institute for Maritime Archaeology in Lelystad, but there are plans to display it in a new museum. The second ship is even larger (35 meters?) and has not been excavated yet. Yet it seems that it was deliberately sunk to fortify the riverbank, a not uncommon practice.
 home   :    index    :    ancient Rome    :      Germania Inferior