Medieval Artisans’ Quarters and the Duisburg Imperial Palace

Abstract

Duisburg (Dispargum) developed into an interregional urban centre in the early and high Middle Ages due to its favorable location where the Rhine and Ruhr Rivers merge and the east-west oriented Hellweg crosses the rivers. Craft production prospered next to trade and transshipment of goods in the palatium settlement and later imperial town. The production of Duisburg pottery with a grey fabric and roulette decoration was of supraregional importance. The pottery (pots and jugs) produced for the palatium complex and the interregional trade in the ninth and tenth centuries was made in workshops along the bank of the Ruhr River. Two ovens were analyzed archaeologically. Ovens and slag finds testify to the presence of iron production and iron working in the periphery of the harbor area. Metalworking was probably also important for shipbuilding and the repair of see-going vessels on the Duisburg shipyards. A sunken hut was found in a suburban settlement of the palatium in the river valley that was probably in use as a weaving shed. In the artisan settlement in Oederich between the harbor and the palatium numerous sunken huts were found. In this area weaving sheds were present and probably smithies, butcheries, leather workshops and workshops for processing bone dating to the eighth to twelfth centuries.