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Founded: 15th centuryCategory: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in Germany
Historical period: Habsburg Dynasty (Germany)
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Once an island in the river Iller, Burghalde hill is one of the oldest settlements of Kempten, first a late-Roman castellum, in the Middle Ages the fort of the monastery’s abbots. In 1488 the tower was added and the whole structure was incorporated into the city’s fortifications. Dismantled in 1705; open-air stage since 1950. Since 2004 home to the Allgäu Castle Museum.
References:Built around AD 90 to entertain the legionaries stationed at the fort of Caerleon (Isca), the impressive amphitheatre was the Roman equivalent of today’s multiplex cinema. Wooden benches provided seating for up to 6,000 spectators, who would gather to watch bloodthirsty displays featuring gladiatorial combat and exotic wild animals.
Long after the Romans left, the amphitheatre took on a new life in Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the somewhat imaginative 12th-century scholar, wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Arthur was crowned in Caerleon and that the ruined amphitheatre was actually the remains of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Today it is the most complete Roman amphitheatre in Britain.