Das Heidentor von Carnuntum

Alongside the Willendorf Venus, no ancient monument has achieved such a degree of fame as the Heathens' Gate at Carnuntum. The character image of the ruin as a gateway arch results from its long period of decay. Since the humanism of the Renaissance, generation after generation has attempted to reveal the secret of the Heathens' Gate by interpreting sources, investigating the building and undertaking excavations. The site has been visited frequently by travellers, and has been recorded in descriptions, drawings, watercolours and copper engravings. Thus today we know that the Heathens' Gate is precisely not a gateway in the sense of a town gate or a single-gate triumphal arch, but is an antique quadriphronium or tetrapylum (double-passage arch, in Greek tetrápylon), i.e. a building on four pillars with four passageways. This work is initially a collection, analysis and evaluation of all the available sources on the Heathens' Gate, i.e. views, descriptions, legends, attempts to reconstruct and explain.