Alt-Scharfeneck Castle

Excavation in 2007 by G. and J. Decker

The fortress of Alt - Scharfeneck was a high spur medieval castle. The origins of the castle date back to the time of the Salian 1024-1125. It is located in the municipality Frankweiler in the district of Southern Wine Route in Rhineland- Palatinate.

Location

The few remains of the castle old Scharfeneck located on a 363 m high rocky spur at the northeastern end of the mountain ringed the entrance to the grove creek valley in the southern Palatinate Forest. The emergence time was around 1100-1130 and most likely a feudal position. In today's maps the terrain is listed only as "artificial embankment ".

History

Presumably, the castle was built during the time of the Salian emperors in the first third of the 12th century. The knowledge gained in the work carried out by Gottfried Decker Frankweiler excavations allow for a dating to the time of the Salian. This contradicts previous assumptions that the castle was commissioned by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to protect the Trifels was built and owned by Henry I " the Old " of Scharfeneck was in 1219, who named himself after the castle. Subsequent owners were in 1232 his two sons, Henry " the elder " and Henry " the Younger ". Nearly two hundred years later in 1416 the castle should then have been left to decay as you umgezog completely in the new castle Neuscharfeneck. Only in the 1950s further foundations were rediscovered during excavations. There were three different wall remains are uncovered, the outer shells consist of a characteristic of the Salian small quad ring masonry. The fact that a residual wall instead was built of mortar with clay, also points to the Salian. ( Comparable masonry am Trifels Anebos and on Schloessel at Klingenmünster. ) Also finding Wiligartaburg and similar ceramics have an earlier construction than previously thought, too. These findings do not exclude, of course, that had been of Scharfenberg / Scharfeneck to their time in the possession of the castle. The castle was abandoned almost certainly before the end of the 14th century and left to decay. In 1830 have the ancestors of the current owners - the castle area is privately owned - spent building forts to Germersheim the building stones which presumably then still existing remains of the northern wall and the remains of a Flankierungsturmes. It was only in the 1950s and then from the 1970s until today some foundation walls have been uncovered by excavations by Kurt Müller and Gottfried Decker again.

Plant

About the construction and appearance of the castle are no sound data. The castle site is freely accessible.