Abschnittsbefestigung Burgstall

The section fortification Burgstall stands on a 467-metre-high spur of the Weingartner Berg above the Arbach valley near Kleinweingarten in Mittelfranken. It overlooks a small side valley and a tributary stream, with steep slopes on three sides protecting the site. The remains lie in woodland called Burgstall, about 300 metres northwest of the Marienkapelle. The surviving earthworks include a curved rampart roughly ninety metres long that cuts off the spur from the plateau to the east. Outside the rampart a four-metre-wide ditch still reaches up to a metre deep, while the rampart itself rises one to two metres above its base. Behind the main wall a second, much-flattened bank may mark an inner defence line. Archaeologists have recorded finds from the Mesolithic period and the early Middle Ages, including Bronze Age arrowheads and a late medieval figurine fragment. Visitors walk along forest paths to the spur and find the rampart and ditch clearly visible among the trees. The inner area has a mushroom-like shape about sixty to eighty metres across, with artificially steepened edges toward the western drop-offs. From the site there are wide views over the Arbach valley and the surrounding countryside.