Dacia / Stein / Garat

Already in the 13th century, a towerless three-nave Romanesque pillar basilica stood in stone. In the 15th century, this church was surrounded by a six to eight meter high defensive wall in the shape of an irregular quadrilateral. It can be assumed that another defensive wall once stood between this wall and the church. When the church was converted into a fortified church around 1500, the side aisles were removed and the arcade arches of the central nave and the upper aisles were bricked up. In addition, the choir and the nave were given a battlement and a defense floor. A few years later, a barrel vault with lunette caps was built over the nave, on which the date 1517 can be read. In 1845 the inhabitants of Dacia extended the church to the west and removed the battlement and the arches between the buttresses. Once there were towers in the four corners of the curtain wall, but in more recent times it was decided to remove the southwest tower to make room for the construction of a hall and the school. A fifth tower, the bell tower, collapsed during the 1738 earthquake, but was rebuilt in 1763. While digging for the foundations of the bell tower, an inscription stone and the remains of a Roman road were found.