Archaeologists stumped by ‘extremely rare’ circular Roman-era tomb. Credit: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation

Construction crews weren’t expecting to make headlines when they broke ground near the village of Wolkertshofen in Bavaria. The project was just a new water retention basin, and a standard one at that. But because the area had a history of ancient settlements, archaeologists were on-site to keep an eye out. At first, they turned up a few pottery shards. Then they hit something far more unusual.

Beneath the topsoil, workers unearthed a perfect circle of stone.

Twelve meters across (39 feet) the ring was made of carefully hewn blocks. A small square annex clung to the southern edge, its size just right to have once supported a statue. But the most striking feature wasn’t what was found—it was what wasn’t. Inside the circle was nothing.

The grave doesn’t appear looted, but there were no bones, no offerings, not a single coin or shard. Just “yawning emptiness,” as researchers put it in a translated statement.

No One Inside

“We hadn’t expected to discover a funerary monument of this age and size here,” said Prof. Mathias Pfeil, curator general of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation. “The tomb was both a place of remembrance and an expression of social status.”

The site is now believed to be a cenotaph—a symbolic grave, built to commemorate a person buried elsewhere. While Roman burial mounds, known as tumuli, are well documented in places like Italy and parts of Central Europe, they’re extremely rare in what was once the Roman province of Raetia—a region covering parts of modern-day southern Germany, Switzerland, and Tyrol. Romans conquered and controlled the parts of what is now Germany west of the Rhine river, establishing Roman provinces and cities like Cologne and Trier.

The tumulus in Wolkertshofen follows Mediterranean architectural traditions, with a precision-cut stone foundation resembling those found in Italy. But its presence here, along a former Roman traffic route into the Altmühl Valley, is both unusual and telling.

“The tumulus was located directly on an important Roman traffic route, and the family used it to create a widely visible memorial for a deceased person,” Pfeil explained. That road once connected Nassenfels with the Altmühl Valley, passing near a Roman country estate, or villa rustica, making this an ideal spot for a prominent family to display legacy and status.

Even without remains, the tumulus offers clues about how people mourned, how they marked status, and how different traditions blended under Roman rule. It’s not a grave in the usual sense, but a marker of remembrance.

Older Customs

The mound sits in a cultural crossroads—both geographically and historically. While the structure itself is Roman in form, its echoes are older.

In Bavaria, burial mounds usually date to the Bronze or Iron Ages. This leads some researchers to wonder: did the Romans here revive earlier, perhaps Celtic, traditions to avoid completely adopting Roman customs?

“Besides newly constructed tumuli, older Bronze or Iron Age burial structures were also reused for secondary burials,” the state office noted in its release. Some scholars interpret this as a conscious nod to pre-Roman funeral practices, possibly to maintain local identity or to legitimize Roman presence in the area.

Further archaeological work may shed more light on historical practices in the region. Teams continue to search for further clues, perhaps more tumuli, or Roman artifacts nearby, but expectations remain cautious. The Wolkertshofen tomb may remain a unique mystery.

As Pfeil put it, “The Roman tomb of Wolkertshofen is therefore of special importance for future research on Roman life in Bavaria.”

Sometimes, the things we don’t find speak loudest of all.