Roman villa Murimooshau

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The ruins under the shelter

The Roman villa Murimooshau stood east above the village of Sarmenstorf in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland .

investment

Plan of the visible ruins:
1. Winter living room with floor heating
2. Dressing room
3. Cold water bath
4. Warm water bath
5. Hot water bath
6. Boiler room with sewer
7. Small boiler room for the warm water

The entire complex of the villa rustica consisted of the main building with inner courtyard and bath house, the houses of the workers and slaves as well as several agricultural buildings. The size of the entire complex cannot be precisely determined without excavations; hardly anything is known about the outbuildings uncovered in the 19th century.

The main building with the dimensions of 58 × 21 meters was oriented to the west and offered a wide view of the Jura , Central Plateau and the Alps . The portico along the front, through which the rooms behind received their light, was 3.7 meters wide. The residential wing was limited on both sides by a protruding side wing . The north wing was a tower-like building with a basement and summer apartment on the first floor. The bathrooms were located in the larger southern part. Remnants of marble slabs and wall paintings testify to the rich furnishings. The fenced in excavation is protected from the weather by a roof.

  • Caldarium , on the right the boiler room for the warm water

  • Undressing room, on the right the winter living room with floor heating

  • On the left the boiler room with sewer, on the right the caldarium

  • Plan from 1927

  • Information board

Digs

Excavations in 1927 (far right: Reinhold Bosch )

A first excavation is said to have been planned around 1830, but was not carried out. Much was later destroyed by numerous robbery excavations . According to records in the Sarmenstorfer Chronik (Argovia III), bricks of the XXI. and XI. Legion, cut marble pieces, broken glass and pot, pieces of plastering with red and green stripes and other things have been found.

Pastors Urech from Birrwil and Fehr from Fahrwangen carried out the first documented excavation in the 1850s. They exposed the walls of several buildings. In 1895 Otto Hauser found some Terra Sigillata shards, indefinable pieces of iron and a few broken bricks with the stamp of the XXI. Legion . In the winter of 1917/1918 a small excavation took place at the instigation of S. Heuberger from Brugg, which the former teacher S. Meier from Wohlen led. His report on the excavation is kept in the Aargau State Archives.

After 1925 the walls of the main building were used as a quarry for the construction of forest paths. In the summer of 1927, this prompted the Seetal Historical Association, under the direction of Reinhold Bosch, to uncover the ruins and draw up a plan of the complex. Except for the bathing wing, which is still visible today, the walls were filled in again after the excavations.

The name Murimooshau indicates that the remains of the wall must have been visible a long time ago (Muri is a derivative of the Latin murus ).

Dating

According to the archaeological finds, the villa was built in the first century AD. The examination of the masonry showed that no significant alterations or additions were made after it was built, so it is an original type of building. The villa was probably destroyed by fire in the 2nd century.

Web links

Commons : Römervilla Sarmenstorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcements of the Antiquarian Society Zurich, XV, 3, 1864, pp. 132f.
  2. ↑ Otto Hauser: Into the paradise of primitive man. Verlag Hoffmann and Campe, 1922, p. 24.
  3. ↑ 10th Annual Report of Switzerland. Society for Prehistory, 1917, p. 74.
  4. ^ R. Bosch: The Roman villa in Murimooshau. In: Anzeiger für Schweizerische Altertumskunde, Volume 32, Issue 1, 1932. P. 25.

Coordinates: 47 ° 18 '7.8 "  N , 8 ° 15' 53"  E ; CH1903:  662 474  /  239359