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Unprecedented Roman mass grave found under Vienna soccer field
Construction at a soccer field in Vienna uncovered hundreds of bones buried there after a battle in the late 1st century. This is an unprecedented find in Roman military history. Roman battle sites have been found in Central Europe, identified by the remains of weapons, armor and ammunition, but soldiers’ bodies were cremated until the 3rd century, so a mass burial pit from this period is unique on the archaeological record.
The discovery was made at the end of October 2024 when mechanical diggers working on the renovation of a sports facility in the Vienna neighborhood of Simmering encountered human remains. They notified the police who saw at a glance these were not killings within the statute of limitations. The police reported the finds to the Federal Monuments Office and the Vienna City Archaeology Department. An excavation ensued, revealing a large number of bones relatively close to the surface.
Archaeologists were not surprised at first — the find site is close to the cemetery and there were plenty of mass deaths in the area from medieval plagues and in the Second Ottoman Siege — but Roman remains of any kind had not previously been found in this area of Vienna. As the excavation progressed, it became clear that the density of burials was unlike any mass graves discovered in the city. There are at least 129 complete skeletons in an area of just 16.5 by 15 feet. Other bones that had been dislodged from the pit by the diggers before construction was halted increase the estimated number of bodies to more than 150.
They were not laid to rest in an organized fashion. They were found in all kinds of positions, on their stomachs and backs, arms and legs stretched out in random directions, limbs entwined with other individuals. The bodies must have been tossed in a pit hastily and without the funerary customs that Romans in particular observed strictly.
More than a third of bodies have been analyzed. The results have found they were all male between 20 and 30 years old and in good physical condition. Only a few individuals exhibited any signs of infectious disease and the men’s teeth were largely cavity-free. Most of them were taller than 5’7″. Every one of the skeletons shows at least one sharp or blunt force injury inflicted at the time of death. Wounds from lance tips, iron bolts fired from a ballista and swords have been identified. One lance tip was still embedded in the pelvic bone of a skeleton. The variety of weapons and fatal injuries exclude collective execution. These men died in battle.
Carbon-14 dating places the deaths to between 80 and 230 A.D., and additional finds in the grave, most notably a finely crafted iron dagger with silver wire inlay, narrow down that date to between the middle of the 1st century to the early 2nd century A.D.
If the battle did take place in the early part of that range, it predates the construction of the legionary fortress of Vindobona. Before the large fort of 6,000 soldiers was built on the Danubian Limes (the boundary line of the empire marked by the Danube river) in around 100 A.D., there was a small cavalry fort of about 1,000 soldiers built during or right after Emperor Domitian’s war against the Roman client-tribes the Quadi, the Marcomanni and the Lazyges in 91-92 A.D. The cavalry fort was about 2 miles northwest of the mass grave.
Artifacts in the pit, including nails from a caliga (hobnailed sandal), pieces of scale armor and the cheek piece of a helmet, point to the deceased having been Roman soldiers, as incongruous as this slapdash burial is for the Roman military.
There is, however, an initial hypothesis for the Hasenleitengasse find – and this could rewrite the history of Vienna’s origins. The Roman Empire had regulated burial rituals. For the period around 100 AD, this primarily meant cremations. The fact that the human bodies were buried unburned in this case is an absolute exception and suggests a lack of time and resources after a dramatic event.
This is surprising, given that the period between 50 and 120 AD is actually considered a relatively peaceful period, according to city archaeologist Martin Mosser. “However, there are a few references in written sources to the Danube Wars of Emperor Domitian (81–96) in the region, which we examined more closely.” For example, in 92 AD, Germanic groups crossed the Danube border into the Roman Empire, and an entire legion is said to have been wiped out in the process. These losses were one of the triggers for Emperor Trajan (98–117) to massively expand the fortifications of the Danube Limes.
The Hasenleitengasse mass grave provides the first physical evidence of the fighting described in the sources. The discovery site, in the immediate vicinity of today’s Vienna city center, may have been an important reason for Vindobona’s expansion from a small Roman military base into a legionary camp. Thus, the mass grave and the resulting defeat of the Roman troops would mark the beginning of Vienna’s urban history.
It’s not yet possible to exclude the possibility that some of their opponents may be buried in the pit as well. Stable isotope analysis of the tooth enamel will reveal where they were born and raised. DNA analysis, pollen analysis and a thorough geophysical survey of the site will also be performed.
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