Natural History Museum (Mainz)

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Natural History Museum State Collection for Natural History Rhineland-Palatinate
Mainz - Natural History Museum - panoramio (1) .jpg
Natural History Museum Mainz, September 2015
Data
place Reichklarastraße 1, 55116 Mainz Coordinates: 50 ° 0 '12 "  N , 8 ° 16' 14"  OWorld icon
Art
opening October 16, 1910
management
Director Dr. Bernd Herkner
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-090711
New since 2019 in the entrance area of ​​the museum: a living reconstruction of the Deinotherium Giganteum ("giant terrifying beast") that populated the Rhine Valley 3.5 million years ago

The Natural History Museum Landessammlung für Naturkunde Rheinland-Pfalz (nhm) in Mainz is the largest museum of its kind in Rhineland-Palatinate . The focus of the exhibitions and collections is the bio and geosciences in Rhineland-Palatinate and its partner country Rwanda . Bernd Herkner has been the director since August 1, 2019, succeeding Michael Schmitz.

The Poor Clare Monastery of St. Klara

The Natural History Museum Mainz exhibits some of its showpieces in the former Poor Clare Monastery of St. Klara (also called Reichklara), for which the foundation stone was laid on All Saints Day in 1272. Due to the extensive legacy of land that its founders, the Frankfurt patrician Humbert zum Widder and his wife Elisabeth, bequeathed to the monastery, the monastery soon enjoyed prosperity. The later monastery of the Rich Poor Clares (Reichklarakloster) received special royal protection through privileges granted by King Adolf in 1294, which were repeatedly submitted to later kings for confirmation. The monastery continued to prosper throughout the late Middle Ages and the early modern period : the nobility and patrician families from Mainz, and later also electoral officials, bequeathed large estates and funds to it. With the consent of Hermann II von Hohenfels, his feudal people sold the village and court of Zornheim to the St. Klara monastery in Mainz. In the sales deed that was issued on June 9, 1329 in Oppenheim, the purchase price of 200 pounds Heller is also mentioned.

From now on, for 250 years, the abbess and convent of Sankt Klara not only owned extensive land in the Zornheim district, but also had direct control over the place. This might have lasted even longer if it hadn't been for the fear of an attack by the increasingly powerful Electoral Palatinate .

Therefore, on September 2, 1578, Abbess Ursula Steinhauserin von Neidenfels transferred all power over Zornheim to the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop Daniel Brendel von Homburg .

In 1781, the last Elector of Mainz, Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal , a "promoter of the sciences", applied for the dissolution of the three richest Mainz monasteries Kartause , Altmünster and Reichklara in order to transfer their properties to the university fund . The dissolution was through a bull of Pope Pius VI. and approved by an imperial decree. The conversion of the monastery into a hospital was started, but never completed. In the years that followed, the buildings were used very differently. They served flood victims as accommodation, then as a military hospital, stable, salt store and merchant's warehouse. During the French occupations at the end of the 18th century, a bakery with a flour magazine was set up, and another time a provisions office .

  • Entrance to the Natural History Museum Mainz (2007)

  • Building of the former Reichklara Monastery Mainz (2006)

  • Klara sculpture at the Reichklarakloster Mainz (2006)

  • Historical museum entrance

  • Geological formations in front of the museum

Rheinische Naturforschende Gesellschaft

The collections of the Natural History Museum in Mainz date back to 1834. At that time, the Rheinische Naturforschende Gesellschaft was founded and at the same time a collection of natural history objects was built up, which should serve to educate and edify the citizens of Mainz. In 1835 the church of the Reichklarakloster was divided into five floors by a renovation. In the course of the 19th century the buildings fell into disrepair. In 1904 only the church remained of the former monastery. In that year the city of Mainz planned to take over the extensive natural history collections of the Rhenish Natural Research Society and to set up a museum. The Reichklarakirche seemed the right place for this.

From the opening in 1910 to the destruction in 1945

On October 16, 1910, the Mainz Natural History Museum opened its doors to visitors in the church of the former Reich Klarakloster. Wilhelm von Reichenau (1847–1925) was the first director . He had been an officer but had given up this job because of a war injury. Reichenau had worked as a taxidermist for the Rheinische Naturforschenden Gesellschaft from 1879 and as a curator at their natural history museum from 1888 . In the line followed after Wilhelm von Reichenau (1910 to 1913), Otto Schmidtgen (1914 to 1938), Eduard Schertz (1939 to 1941) and Wilhelm Weiler (1941 until it was destroyed by aerial bombs in 1945).

The Natural History Museum Mainz became famous in the 1920s through important fossil finds near Nierstein am Rhein (about 290 million years old track plates with footprints of insects and dinosaurs ) and from Wallertheim (finds at an ice age hunter's resting place of Neanderthals ). In addition to the collections of objects from prehistoric times, there was also a zoological department at that time . On February 27, 1945 the Reichklarakirche was destroyed by aerial bombs. Most of the holdings in the Natural History Museum were lost.

Rebuilding the collection

The rebuilding of the collections took place under difficult conditions after the war; This is the only way to understand why the museum was only able to reopen 17 years after the war damage in 1962. Due to increasingly critical damage to the building and foundations of the medieval building complex, the Natural History Museum was provisionally renovated from the summer of 2007 at a cost of 3.6 million euros. After eleven months of renovation work, the museum reopened at the end of September 2019.

The museum has tracks of prehistoric dinosaurs and insects from the Rotliegend period ( Permian ) from Nierstein am Rhein. With more than 25,000 finds from the Mosbacher Sands near Mainz-Amöneburg , it has a comparatively large collection of Ice Age animals such as the hippopotamus , steppe mammoth , elk , wolf , Mosbacher lion , European jaguar and saber-toothed cat , which were found in the Rhine-Main area about 500,000 years ago lived. In 1984 the museum celebrated the 150th anniversary of its collections. The foundation of the State Collection for Natural History Rhineland-Palatinate in 1988 is considered a milestone in the history of the Natural History Museum in Mainz . This enabled the systematic development of scientific collections in the fields of biology and geosciences for Rhineland-Palatinate.

The attractions in the exhibition are the preparations of three South African plains zebras ( quaggas ). Only 23 specimens of these animals, which died out around 1900, exist worldwide. The quaggas are presented together with other zebra species and other horse species: from around 45 million year old horses from the Eocene from Eckfeld near Manderscheid to Ice Age horses to today's horses, donkeys and half donkeys. The rich mineral collection provides information about the natural resources of Rhineland-Palatinate. Another focus is the presentation of the local bird life.

  • The phases of geological development in the timeline

  • Fossil from the slate of the Hunsrück

  • Petrified amphibians from the Permian

  • The conquest of the land in the Paleozoic : Sclerocephalus haeuseri

  • The woolly rhinoceros lived in the cold-age steppes of Eurasia in the Pleistocene

  • Puppy of a bear dog ( Agnotherium antiquum ) that could weigh 270 kg.

  • Pygmy elephants that formed on different islands. Most of the species are now extinct.

  • Hall with the "equine species". On the left is a model of the original horse.

  • In the foreground: three South African plains zebras (quaggas), extinct in 1900.

  • The capercaillie , the largest chicken in Germany, is about to decrease in number.

  • The wildcat loves near-natural forests and semi-open landscapes.

  • Various habitats are shown in the museum, here the native forest and some of its animals

Web links

Commons : Natural History Museum (Mainz)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Reichklarenkloster (Mainz)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung of July 30, 2019: Director of the Natural History Museum retired, retired , accessed on July 31, 2019
  2. ^ Johann Peter Schunk : Contributions to the History of Mainz , Volume II, Mainz 1789, p. 243 ff.
  3. ^ Wilhelm von Reichenau . In: Museum Digital Rhineland-Palatinate
  4. ↑ Natural history museum after the bomb attack . In: Museum Digital Rhineland-Palatinate
  5. ↑ Museum is being renovated for 3.6 million euros . ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung , June 2, 2007
  6. ↑ Peter Eisenhuth: 400 million years on 600 square meters. In: www.faz.net. September 28, 2019. Retrieved September 29, 2019 .
  7. ↑ The Quaggas of the Natural History Museum . In: Museum Digital Rhineland-Palatinate
  8. ^ Original horse skull from Eckfeld . In: Museum Digital Rhineland-Palatinate
  9. ↑ Pregnant mare of a prehistoric horse from Eckfeld . In: Museum Digital Rhineland-Palatinate