Battle at the Harzhorn

A 43’/63′ archaeological documentary,
written & directed by Florian Dedio

The Harzhorn is an inconspicuous hilly ridge in Lower Saxony, Germany.

In 2008, hobby archaeologists discovered a strange object here. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a Roman horseshoe.

This seemed impossible, because the Romans were not supposed to have advanced this far into Germany. And the plot thickened when more artifacts were found, pointing at the 3rd century, when they were not thought to have advanced into Germany at all…

With that, a race against time began: to secure the site and find out what happened here before word got out and priceless artifacts could be lost forever.

During the following excavations, archaeologists unearthed more and more military artifacts. And then, they realized that they had found the site of a long-forgotten, near mythical battle: Rome’s last campaign into Germany.

Accompanying an ongoing archaeological excavation was thrilling for me. The phone would ring, and I would have to race to the Harzhorn to film the unearthing of yet another amazing artifact that, quite often, shattered the view of what had happened here at the Harzhorn almost 1800 years ago.

When archaeological filming had wrapped, I got to re-create some of the key battle scenes that with scores of Roman legionaires and German warriors, to give viewers a feeling of what it would have been like, and how we know what happened.