Where a violent crime occurs, the victim is usually identified. Forensic investigations primarily aim to identify the perpetrator or perpetrators. In Kalkriese, a small area near Osnabrück, however, things are different. A good 2000 years ago, people died at this crime scene, many people in fact. The perpetrators are known to be members of the Germanic tribes, but the question of the victims is much more interesting.
That they were Roman soldiers is undisputed. “That was a total defeat of Roman units, that’s clearly documented,” says Stefan Burmeister, managing director of the museum in Kalkriese. Only: Which army went down here? “That’s the big argument,” says the historian.
The definitive answer to that question would end a debate that has been smoldering for centuries. The heart of the matter: Where did the so-called Varus Battle take place? The battle in AD 9 in which three legions under their commander Publius Quinctilius Varus were ambushed and crushed by a coalition of Germanic tribes? The defeat was devastating for the Roman Empire and ultimately put an end to its efforts to incorporate the areas east of the Rhine into the Empire.
Nationalist thinkers made the battle the founding myth of the Germans
The victory of the coalition forged by the Cheruscan prince Arminius still had political influence in the 19th century. Nationalist writers and intellectuals fantasized the “Hermannsschlacht” into a German founding myth; they declared the Germanic tribes to be Germans without further ado. Accordingly, it was of particular interest where this alleged laying of the foundation stone of Teutonic identity took place. Dozens of possible battlefields have been debated in research. The historian Theodor Mommsen identified the place that is now widely recognized as a favorite as early as 1885: Kalkriese.
Since 1989, systematic archaeological work has been carried out in the Osnabrücker Land. As a former battlefield, Kalkriese is an inestimably valuable research location, but no find has been able to prove whether the Varus Battle really took place here, despite numerous indications. Until now?
A new metallurgical analysis method is said to have finally solved the mystery. Annika Diekmann, research associate at the German Mining Museum in Bochum, analyzed the composition of chemical trace elements in Roman non-ferrous metals such as bronze and brass. Since the non-ferrous metals of Roman legions clearly differ in their composition, something like a metallurgical fingerprint can be created in this way and a legion can be identified.
The researchers analyzed around 550 metal samples
The Roman contemporary Velleius Paterculus provides literary evidence that the 19th Legion, among others, took part in the Varus Battle. The researchers therefore took samples from other locations where this unit was undoubtedly stationed and compared them with the material from Kalkriese. After analyzing around 550 samples, it is clear: the 19th Legion took part in the battle in Kalkriese. The competing narrative states that it was not the Varus Battle that took place here, but a military defeat of the general Nero Claudius Germanicus in the year 15 AD. Therefore, the researchers also took samples from legion sites where the legions of Germanicus spent the winter. “Here we have significant differences,” says Diekmann. “So from a chemical and mathematical point of view, I think the results are very meaningful.”
The chemical analysis process therefore proves that the legions of Varus and not those of Germanicus perished in Kalkriese. Does that end the debate? “Anyone who doesn’t want to believe in us will continue to harbor their doubts,” says Stefan Burmeister. For him, however, the answer is clear: “With the metallurgical fingerprint, we have again set a very strong exclamation point that Kalkriese is the site of the Varus Battle.”