AALBURG, NEAR BEFORT, LUXEMBOURG
With the outbreak of World War II, all of this excavation
ceased. Save for an isolated excavation conducted by Gustav
Rieck during the German occupation of Luxembourg at
Aalburg, near Befort,[133]
nothing new was added to our
knowledge of the early history of the three-aisled timber
house. Rieck uncovered the foundations of an aisled timber
hall of extraordinary dimensions (102 feet long and 29 feet
broad [31 m. × 8·8 m.]) which antedated even the earliest
Ezinge houses (figs. 310, 311). Here, it seems, in a dwelling
that had been constructed as early as 500 B.C., in territory
where Celtic and Germanic influences intermingled, the
excavator had come upon a floor plan that anticipated by
one millennium the T-shaped Flet and Dele arrangement
of the Lower Saxon farmhouse. The roof-supporting posts
of this house were not sunk into holes but rose freely from
base blocks above the ground, attesting overhead a solid
frame of cross and long beams. This site raised the interesting
question, whether the aisled West-Germanic timber
house might not have been adopted at a very early date in
the territory of the neighboring Celts.
