Roman patrol ships, c. 100 AD
A Roman military camp was built in Oberstimm, near Ingolstadt, Germany, in the middle of the 1st century AD. Due to the location of the camp on the Danube and thus the ‘wet Limes’, Roman patrol boats were also stationed here to secure the Danube. From 1984, parts of the fort site were archaeologically investigated and two wrecks were discovered. In 1986, the finds were stored wet in the Roman-Germanic Central Museum and archaeologically examined for the first time by Olaf Höckmann.
It was not until 1994 that they were fully recovered. They have been on display at the ‘kelten römer museum maching’ since 2006. The wrecks of Oberstimm, which sank around 100 AD, could be both rowed and sailed as fast patrol boats. The longest of the two wrecks measures 15.2 metres in length and has a maximum width of 2 metres, while the shorter wreck 2 measures 14.6 metres in length and has a maximum width of 2.4 metres.
Despite the existing similarities to existing shipwrecks, it is not (or was not) possible to precisely assign the wrecks to existing ship types, so they were recorded as a separate type, named after the Oberstimm site.
