Date(s): 2008. Photos by Aymar. 1 - 47 of 47 Total. 5566 Visits.
1 Grinario In situ, downtown Köngen, Jupiter-Giant column and Alpha Romeo dealership. - Meaning of the old name is uncertain. (On Greeks and gringos.) Possibly pre-Roman.
2 Grinario Jupiter-Giant column
3 Grinario Copper maquette. Nominal strength of the fort, ca 600. Detail: One long house per centuria, subdivided into 8 men contubernii. Enlarged living quarters of the centurion at the front end. (One of the long houses served as stable.)
4 Grinario Principia (central staff buildings and drill ground). Not completely sure about the flooding. Water sports day? Modest suggestion, a bath tub plug. - Some chronological problem. Remains of a bathhouse (hot tub cum sweat lodge facilities) where found inside the compound but they date from a time when the fort had already been abandoned. Unanswered, who had to fetch all the fire wood.
5 Grinario Rebuilt corner tower, anno 1911. With pickax and gold chain watch. Inauguration photo? The reconstruction was sponsored 'a solo' by the Swabian Jura Society (plaque: Sodalitatis Albanae Suebicae cura et sumptu a solo restituta). - Revised opinion: Missing shutters for the top windows. No lower window (military safety first). One pinnacle too many.
6 Grinario quiet day after the inauguration
7 Grinario Fretwork hour
8 Grinario Riding through the seasons. The lower half of the unfluted column is decorated with what looks like pine cone scales. The upper section is dedicated to Bacchantic pursuits. Rousseau take: the tiger in the jungle, the romping putti in the grape hung vineyard.
9 Grinario the 'maypole' top
10 Grinario Sacred precinct. Politically correct interpretation: St. George defeating the dragon. (Dissenting crawlspace voice: placating the wrath of the stock market with burnt offerings.)
11 Grinario Ground based capital. The column has been lost. (The fiery steeds seem to be unaffected by the strangulation harness. The incriminating Lefebvre thesis is no longer widely held. In a nutshell: the Roman slave holder world needed beefy sedan carriers because they accidentally garroted all their horses during wild joy rides. 19th century horse collars were basically straw padded leather sleeves with an iron ring core.)
12 Grinario Jupiter (Best&Greatest) - on wild goose watch, whatever elevates the view - possibly bearded. A cerulean sky would be germane.
13 Grinario The mistreated giant will start spouting water any minute. Ad hoc: Yellowstone National, where the gargoyles still roam freely.
14 Grinario Funeral monument (most likely relocated, the cemetery was hardly inside the camp). Last supper motive. Reclining chair with 'waiter'. Etruscan influence nearly palpable.
15 Grinario Staff bearing Mercury and a rather diminutive Rosmerta (one more virgin precursor). Equivalent Gallic deities were acceptable, Interpretatio Romana, but some size handicap was apparently deemed appropriate. No particular military duties. Just a regional find thrown in for scenic reasons. The jointly held round sphere will be a money bag rather than a terrestrial globe (Worldcom Reichsapfel) - or so it is said. Backdrop, some civilians engaged in limber up exercises.
16 Grinario Recycled splendor. This backside of this Etruscan pilaster column bears a slightly post-Etruscan inscription (in large sized letters). Approximately: "Privately owned meadow. No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted." - Personal bet: give me the most arcane inscription in the world and there is a better than 50% probability that it will just read 'tow away zone'.
17 Grinario Portable miller's nine board. Will fit into any 'haversack'. Emergency use as millstone. (Most likely a classroom project). - Other 'bean games' of childhood renown: Go-bang, checkers, Kalah (Macala) - the Mark One form of 'do not get angry?'. Card games, the precursor of printed money, usual transubstantiation by divine fiat (and an occasional General Montcalm signature), were introduced later, ca 14th century.
18 Grinario Epona in the rose petals. (The stable boy just left.) Comes with some sort of harvest basket, (cornucopia second class?). Celtic ancestry. Extended functions: Patroness of truck drivers, lots of horse power, and travelers. Not sure about sailors. Implicated in witchcraft nearly unavoidable. Better known Godiva fate. Eponas on horseback were also common.
19 Grinario Hardly the most glare free picture ever taken but I do like the small Jupiter-Giant column in the center of the market square. No basswood square without one. - Neckar proximity can be deduced by the pole carried fish in the bow net type catching device. Probably still trashing.
20 Grinario The all wooden 'Fort Laramie' construction was upgraded ca 120 AD into a more solid sandstone fortification. Abandoned 155 AD when the legion war relocated to Lorch, a day march to the East. Antonius Pius knows best. Might have amounted to one Limes line redrawing per generation? - The left gate arch, minimal clearing, with centering (falsework frame) still in place.
21 Grinario The reinforcements. Not sure if they will arrive in time. (The marching in step part is certainly forgettable. Maybe the right time for a bawdy song to lift the spirits. Three step count down.)
22 Grinario Look into the future - Porta Principalis dextra direction. It is either an A-frame (suitable for post Second Vatican Council churches and small on site museums) or a Habitat-67 type flat roof. Carpenter skills (the truss roof) versus tar foil aided sealing chemistry. Roman road builder comment: The top layer of pebbles serves as protection against hail (and other kinds of roof jumping battle robots). A layer of windblown sand, impact diffusing, would have some inherent disadvantages. As an aside, flat roof is technically a misnomer. There is always some gradient, even as in roof gutters. - The flanking Lombardy poplars add a touch of grace.
23 Grinario Pinnacle view of the nearby shopping center (no fort without one).
24 Grinario REWE group cash and carry store. Renowned for all too frequent PA abuses. Blaring sales pitches interlaced with the latest broadband news should cover it. - Particular 'GreatValue' brand: "K-Classic".
25 Grinario closed season
26 Grinario No receipt without shopping cart number (the tag - acrylic sticker - is not exactly at eye level). Just to make sure that the cashier will check en passant if the shopping cart is truly empty. Better than no calisthenics at all. (A single 'turnpike' arm blocks closed check out lanes. An unlocked bar has to be first lifted out of a slot before it can be pivoted out of the way. Only required once when a check out line is opened. Larger stores feature also time locked double bars - remote controlled saloon doors. - There is usually only one portal per parking lot and mall. Same rule as for igloos.)
27 Grinario Smart car with logistic 'war paint'. Headlights still dew covered. DHL, founder name acronym. Troika.
28 Grinario The 'Roman Bridge' (Ulrichsbrücke) which the Roman Neckar fort was supposed to guard. Mark one version most likely in wood. (Ghost voice: Unlimber the hatches, the Alemanni are coming.) The inscription of the obelisk, permissible Jupiter-giant column substitute, is dedicated to Schickhardt (Beer protege, of Lusthaus and Freudenstadt fame). Renaissance men do it all. The plaque is of questionable authenticity. The actual sponsor, Duke Friedrich I, is not mentioned. Rebuilt once more in 1946. In passing, most military review boards award special decorations for blowing up bridges in the last days of a war. Sacred tradition since the time of Livius. One more demolished Sublician bridge will make all the difference. (Greater common good, it takes all kinds of organized impersonifications.)
Itinerary part: Better known Roman rest stops along this particular highway: Arae Flaviae and Sumelocenna. Northbound traffic (skipping a few pit stops): Cannstatt and Wallheim (mor...
29 Grinario With hair comb and petticoat. Daybreak for a long necked market square spotter. The stratospheric bust size is Russ Meyers worthy.
30 Grinario the local castle
31 Grinario Branched stand of Maximilian sunflowers (or next of kin) against the dust stained display window of a nail polish studio. Nature is sometimes more enduring than small business. (Retired farrier: told you so.)
32 Grinario Market square. Tabard wearing 'horse tamer' holding a virtual bridle. The traditional color of the peasant tabard is blue. Linen fabric. I do not know the story behind this sculpture.
33 Grinario Broken twig with enduring leaves. Tentatively: Baldness can be prevented if you cut off the blood supply. As simple as that. Not completely sure which plant hormone is responsible for leaf dropping. Abscisic acid? (Neurons have supplanted most of the earlier, diffusion based signal systems in multicellular organisms of the mobile persuasion. Testosterone based reactions always excepted.)
34 Grinario Cabbage patch fox hunt or something of that nature.
35 Grinario Aftermath. Two reserve maniple remain. Present day agriculture has by and large returned to the less flexible phalanx formation. - Backdrop, power plant chimneys (EnBW, Esslingen-Altbach).
36 Grinario The gleaner in the corn.
37 Grinario Top racemes, Indian corn with outbound traffic (very small dot, Swiss Air by tail fin heraldic)
38 Grinario A heddle free warp of rape (wild cabbage). Not to be mistaken with Solidago canadensis (Goldenrod), that other curtain call of fall.
39 Grinario Heap of sugar beet, the Septentrional version of sugar cane. (Most culass swinging knights were in facts simple sugar cane harvesters.) - Backdrop, rather small, Swiss Air flight still tilted at the take off angle. The Stuttgart airport is close.
40 Grinario King of the sugar beet heap
41 Grinario What is what. The closely related Fodder beet [Beta vulgaris alba] has a more cylindrical root shape than the Sugar Beet [Beta vulgaris altissma](shown here). Appropriate moral (as long as it is trite): It is the actual sugar content that counts and not the ungainly shape.
Deep time view, the Continental Blockade, Napoleonic time frame, not always clear who embargoed whom and how it played out, did give the local sugar beet production a tremendous boost. No more cheap cane sugar exports from the West Indies. Silesia's hour of fame. Heavy, well watered clay soils a must. Castro, intrigued, how many macheteros per ton of root crop.
Fodder beet, not earmarked for further processing, can be winter stored in situ. Earth covered piles with optional groundsheet. Probably a form of clamp storage. No longer too common.
44 EnBW, Esslingen-Altbach The pylon grid that goes with it. (Cresting the Southern slopes of the Neckar valley.)
45 EnBW, Esslingen-Altbach This picture was taken from the great banquet hall of the Körschburg which once overlooked the Neckar Fils confluence. Requires a considerable amount of imagination. Not a stone left.
