Das städtische Grundstück im Opava (Troppau) des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts aus archäologischer Sicht

The separation of the original core of the town of Opava, founded between 1213 and 1220, into plots was adapted to the communication scheme of the earlier settlement. Within the development of the town in the second half of the 13th century, regularly measured-out blocks of houses were built in the southern part of the town. Archeologically, the development of the land subdivision and buildings may be observed by means of the finds of fences and sunken basements of wood-and-clay buildings, which dominated among the buildings of the early town. Around the turn of the 14th century, we encounter the earliest known evidence of stone chambers (‘Steinwerk’), built at the place or earlier basements of wood-and-clay buildings, which were in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries integrated into the new stone buildings covering the entire width of the plots all to way to the street line. It is also characteristic for the period of the 13th and 14th centuries that the terrain in the area of the plots as well as in public spaces was significantly raised, which was mainly caused by the deposition of soil from the construction pits for house basements and waste disposal in their immediate vicinity. From the second half of the 13th century, the sanitary situation of the town was improved by the gradual spread of wooden-constructed waste pits, whereas medieval wells have been recorded only sporadically.