Donnerskirchen

Donnerskirchen (Hungarian: Fertőfehéregyháza, Croatian: Bijela Crikva) is a market town in the district Eisenstadt-Umgebung in the Austrian state of Burgenland.

History

Early history and Celtic settlement

Before the birth of Christ, the area formed part of the Celtic kingdom of Noricum and lay within the area of the Celtic hilltop settlement of Burg.

At the foot of the Leitha Mountains, two La Tène-period burials were uncovered during an archaeological excavation carried out by the Burgenland State Museum in the Wolfsbachried area. The two rectangular burial shafts had been cut into calcareous sandstone and lined with wood. One grave contained the remains of a man aged between 50 and 70, the other those of a woman aged between 60 and 80. The graves were aligned on a south–north axis and had already been looted by the time they were discovered. Grave goods found in the man's burial included an iron spearhead, a spear ferrule, a razor, two whetstones, an incomplete iron fibula, a clay bowl, a clay bottle, and several fragments belonging to an iron sword scabbard. In the woman's grave, excavators found four bronze fibulae, a finger ring, a bowl, and two clay bottles.

Roman period

Under Roman rule, present-day Donnerskirchen lay within the province of Pannonia. The Amber Road, one of the Roman Empire’s most important trade routes, runs through the eastern part of the municipality along the edge of the reed belt of Lake Neusiedl.