Königsbrunn Archaeological Museum
The Archaeological Museum Königsbrunn documents excavation finds of the Working Group for Prehistory and Early History primarily from the Swabian town of Königsbrunn , but also from other excavation sites in the southern district of Augsburg .
The museum, which opened in 1993, is run by the working group on a voluntary basis and is located in the basement of the Königsbrunn town hall (Marktplatz 7). It is open every third Sunday of the month from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., as well as by appointment through the Königsbrunn cultural office. Admission is free.
The museum
The archaeological museum presents regional finds from prehistory and early history from the Stone Age through the Bronze, Iron and Roman Ages to the Middle Ages . The spatial area covered includes the southern district of Augsburg and extends from Augsburg or federal highway 300 in the north to Schwabmühlhausen in the south.
The museum is structured chronologically. A timeline drawn continuously on the wall marks the various epochs. For this purpose, maps show the position of the sites at the respective time period. Most of the exhibits are (restored) originals. They are supplemented by drawings, photographs of the excavation work as well as reconstructions of parts that have not been preserved (wood, textiles) and figurines in reconstructed robes from the Bronze, Roman and Alemannic times.
Stone age
Readings (various types of stone tools : scratches, blades, knives, drills, scrapers, spearheads, arrowheads) date from the Neolithic Age (around 4000 BC ), mainly from the Königsbrunn region.
Bell Beaker Culture
One of the outstanding exhibits is an originally preserved burial from the bell beaker culture , which dates back to around 2300 BC. BC ( Copper Age ) is dated. This culture marked the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age . In this culture the dead were always buried lying on their side with bent legs and arms ( stool graves ), with women and girls buried with their heads in the south, men and boys with their heads in the north; the face always pointing to the east. One of these stool graves (found in Königsbrunn) is set up in the museum together with the well-preserved skeleton of a man in the found location.
Bronze and Urnfield Ages
The settlement of the Lechfeld in the Bronze Age is evidenced by several burial places. So far, seven Bronze Age necropolises have been found in Königsbrunner Flur alone .
Bronze gifts are on display from an early Bronze Age burial ground in Kleinaitingen (around 1900 BC). The stone box found in Königsbrunn also dates from the Early Bronze Age (see below).
Finds from Late Bronze Age / Urnfield Age graves (approx. 1400–1100 BC) from Kleinaitingen, Oberottmarshausen and Königsbrunn are also presented. The diverse grave goods found here include: jewelry made of gold and bronze, dinnerware, a sword , a rare bronze cup and the bronze fittings of a four-wheeled cart. The cattle teeth that were attached to the buried had a more symbolic meaning. They are possibly a reference to cattle breeding, which the local stony and arable land would have allowed and which would explain the obvious prosperity of this population group.
Hallstatt and La Tène period
A complete settlement from the late Hallstatt period (around 500–400 BC) was discovered in Königsbrunn . Around 50 wooden buildings could be reconstructed through post holes . The settlement, which was located on the edge of the slope of the Lech , is clearly laid out as a 4 × 1.6 meter model.
Numerous burial mounds in the region, in which large burial urns were found, as well as mysterious circular moats with a diameter of up to 50 meters also date from the Hallstatt period . Their function is still unknown. The life of the people during this period is illustrated by loom weights , spindle whorls , millstones, bone tools and vessels.
The La Tène period is represented by graphitized ceramic shards, a particularly beautiful bronze fibula and a Celtic shrine from Kleinaitingen, of which a reconstruction drawing is shown.
Roman Imperial Era
The most important Roman road north of the Alps, the Via Claudia Augusta , runs through Königsbrunn. Numerous Roman finds such as ceramic vessels or coins come from various manors ( Villae Rusticae ) and remains of settlements along the Via Claudia. The Roman bath found in Königsbrunn (see below) can be seen in the museum as a reconstructed model.
Early middle ages
In Schwabmühlhausen finds from a row grave field of the Alemanni from the 8th century AD were recovered. Several warriors were buried here with complete weapons and fittings made by Italian masters. In a side room of the museum, the graves of an armed warrior and a decorated woman are shown lying in two glass “coffins” (showcases).
High Middle Ages
Excavations in Wehringen uncovered a densely built-up craftsmen's settlement from the 7th to 11th centuries. Textile processing was mainly carried out here. However , so far there is no archaeological trace of the legendary battle on the Lechfeld , which is said to have taken place here in the region on August 10, 955.
This ends the chronological tour.
Archaeological sites in Königsbrunn
Outside the museum, the following archaeological finds can be viewed publicly on the grounds of the municipal cemetery:
The stone box from Königsbrunn
While plowing in the autumn of 1917 in the south of Königsbrunn (about 150 meters south of the Neuhaus-Bobingen road, in the "Berggewanne" corridor), farmers came across a large tufa object in the ground, which turned out to be an early Bronze Age stone box . The grave is a unique find for southern Germany and, in its special kind, a type documented here for the first time.
The stone box, known as the tuff slab grave, was uncovered in 1918 and recovered from its place of discovery. It contained the bones of a man about 25 years old. Due to the elaborate burial, he was probably the son of a chief . He survived a skull operation by at least three years. After the archaeological work was completed, the stone box was set up above ground in the open air. A modern inscription plaque was inserted into its narrow side, which describes the object, it dates back to the beginning of the pre-Roman metal age around 1800 BC. Dated, as well as the date and place of discovery. The stone box is now, protected from precipitation by a glass roof, near the entrance in the municipal cemetery.
Mithraeum
The Roman mithraeum of Königsbrunn is one of six mithraea found in Bavaria so far and the only surviving one in the Roman province of Raetia . When the municipal cemetery of Königsbrunn was laid out on the slope of the Lechfeld high terrace in 1976/77, Roman traces were found. A Roman long-distance water pipeline ran here from the south, possibly from the Hurlach spring reservoir, past the place Graben , which is why it got its name, in the direction of the Raetian provincial capital Augusta Vindelicum . The Via Claudia ran parallel to the east, a good kilometer away.
Initially, a Villa Rustica with about eight outbuildings was recognized in the found walls and the rubble and brick. It probably also served as the last road station before Augusta Vindelicum and, according to findings, was attacked and destroyed in around 180 AD and 375 AD. It was not until decades after this excavation that it was discovered that one of the buildings (No. 5) was a place of worship for the Roman god Mithras and another was a Roman bath. In 2000, the remains of the wall, which had been covered with earth again, were dug up again and, due to their special uniqueness - despite the relatively poor state of preservation - built over with a modern protective structure in 2001/02.
The walls of the Mithraeum of Königsbrunn have the external dimensions of 9.8 × 9.1 meters and are made of tuff, which probably comes from the Untermeitingen area . They only reached up to a height of about 30 cm, above which the building was probably made of wood, the roof covered with shingles . The entrance to the Mithraeum is in the north. A double-winged, inwardly opening door led to a small anteroom. From here you got straight ahead into a smaller room in the south, and on the right hand into the actual interior, which is oriented in east-west direction, which has the three-part division typical of Mithraea: a central aisle ( cella ) flanked by two podiums on the left and right on which the participants lay at the ceremonies. To the west is a somewhat lower, rectangular apse .
The floor of the cella consists of lime mortar, which was covered with loose, fine-grained tuff in the course of a renovation. Almost 100 coins from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD were found here, although they were of little value (sacrificial pennies). Remnants of plaster painted in red, white and green were found on the walls. At the end of the cella there was a cult image of tauroctony ( bull- killing scene) in each miter . This is not preserved here in Königsbrunn. Therefore, a copy of the Mithras stone from Sterzing , which was found in a mountain cave near Mauls ( Freienfeld , South Tyrol) in 1589, is displayed on the inner western wall of the protective structure .
The Mithraeum is open every 4th Sunday of the month from 2 to 4 p.m. between March and October. Admission is free. Guided tours are carried out on a voluntary basis by employees of the working group for prehistory and early history and can be arranged through the city of Königsbrunn's cultural office. The Mithras sanctuary can be viewed from the outside at any time, as a large window provides a view of the protective structure.
The protective structure
Interior of the Mithras sanctuary
Tauroctonia cult image
Roman bath
About 70 meters north of the Mithraeum, a Roman bath was found on the edge of today's cemetery. This was not a private bath, but open to the public. The bath had several rooms for changing, washing and bathing in water basins with different temperatures. The rooms were heated by a hypocaust heater. The water for the bath was taken from the Roman aqueduct to Augsburg, which ran slightly above the bath. After being used as bathing water, it was used to flush the latrines and, downwards, to irrigate the fields.
The bath was probably part of the last street station before Augsburg. It is now assumed that there are around 30 to 40 Roman buildings here and there is also a well-developed connection road to the Via Claudia.
The excavation of the bath was completed in 2012. In 2013, work began to make the bathroom understandable to the public. The walls lying in the ground were covered with sand, foil, gravel and earth in order to preserve them for future generations and marked above ground with gabions placed above them . An information pavilion offers explanations, photos and a model of the bathroom.
literature
- Annual reports of the Heimatverein for the district of Augsburg eV
Web links
- Königsbrunn Archaeological Museum
- Information page about the museum on Lechrain-Geschichte.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ 32nd annual report of the Heimatverein for the district of Augsburg eV, 2009/2010, p. 94ff and p. 98f
- ↑ 32nd annual report of the Heimatverein for the district of Augsburg eV, 2009/2010, p. 95
- ↑ Christoph Bauer: The Roman rule in Vindelikien, in: History of Swabia until the end of the 18th century (Handbook of Bavarian History, Volume 3/2) . Munich 2001, p. 60 .
- ↑ 33rd annual report of the Heimatverein for the district of Augsburg eV, 2011/2012, p. 18
Coordinates: 48 ° 16 '7.8 " N , 10 ° 53" 27.7 " E