Roman lapidary
 Replica of a giant column of Jupiter in front of the entrance to the lapidarium |
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| place | Stuttgart 
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| opening | 1989 |
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The Roman lapidarium in the basement of the New Palace in Stuttgart is a more than 400 year old collection of Roman stone monuments from the Württemberg State Museum .
Around 100 specimens are presented here in the form of statues and sculptures as well as stone reliefs and inscription panels from the period around 50 to 300 AD. At that time, the area of what is now Württemberg belonged to the Roman provinces of Upper Germany and Raetia .
In addition to the Roman Lapidarium, there is also the Stuttgart City Lapidarium . In the open-air museum, 200 testimonies from five centuries of Stuttgart city history are exhibited, and in the Landesmuseum Württemberg a collection of Roman finds from the state with over 500 objects, including numerous stone monuments.
history
The word lapidary is derived from the Latin lapis , which means "stone". The foundation of today's collection was laid as early as 1583 when the humanist and Latin teacher Simon Studion from Marbach donated seven Roman stone altars and reliefs to Duke Ludwig of Württemberg , which he had set up in his Stuttgart pleasure house . Studion discovered a Roman altar in a wine cellar in Benningen in 1579 , which was dedicated to the Roman god Vulcanus . This had piqued his interest in Roman antiquity. The collection now consists of around 1,300 monuments and fragments. About 100 of these are exhibited in the Roman lapidarium, which is located in the basement of the New Palace. They are among the testimonies to the early history of Württemberg. Since characters were hardly known in this area before the Roman conquest, the Roman stone monuments represent an innovation in the development of Central Europe. They are early written sources which, as primary sources, provide information directly about the people and their living conditions who lived here .
collection
The state museum's stone memorial collection is one of the largest and oldest collections of its kind in Germany. It includes over 1200 monuments. Around 100 of them are on display in the Roman lapidarium, which shed more light on the conditions at that time. The exhibition gives an overview of the organization and military structure on the Limes , insights into the life of the civilian population with names or typical occupations, but also about religious ideas about the afterlife or the cult of the dead . The remaining exhibits of the collection are in the magazines.
In front of the inconspicuous entrance is a replica of the giant Jupiter column from Hausen an der Zaber made of artificial stone . The original fragments found are part of the exhibition in the lapidarium.
Mithras relief
The relief was discovered in 1583 in the wall of a vineyard near Fellbach, the associated mithraium has not yet been proven.
The so-called mithraea were often created in caves or cellar vaults. On the long sides of the room used as a place of worship there were benches and on the front side a painting or a relief picture depicting the god in his most important heroic deed. According to legend, this was the killing of a bull in a cave. The relief in the exhibition is damaged. Part of the ritual held in these rooms was the cult meal, which was supposed to commemorate the sacred meal of the gods Mithras and Sol. This was committed by them together after Mithras' victory over the bull. During excavations in the Mithras sanctuaries, remains of animal bones and ceramics were often found.
In front of the relief are two altars for Luna and Sol from the Mithraeum of Mundelsheim: One altar shows the bust of Luna, recognizable by the openwork crescent moon, the other the Sol, with an openwork halo. The cavity in the back wall was used for lighting.
Jupiter giant column
In front of the building is a replica of a so-called Jupiter giant column. This type of monument found widespread use in northern Upper Germany or eastern Gallia Belgica . But some were also found in Raetia and Britain. Like the Mithras shrines, these pillars also had a fairly uniform appearance. The column, which comes from Hausen an der Zaber, has leaves and acorns on the shaft instead of the more common scales. A Corinthian capital , which could be provided with busts of the four seasons, usually served as the end of the column . At the top sat a group of figures depicting a god Jupiter riding or driving in a chariot , throwing lightning bolts.
- Impressions of the lapidarium
View of the exhibition
Mithras kills the bull Ahura Mazdas
Fragments of the giant column of Jupiter
The genius
Welcome relief
At the entrance to the Roman Lapidarium, visitors are greeted by a copy of a relief from Roman times. A sandstone block with a Latin-German inscription by Josef Eberle welcomes visitors to the lapidarium.
relief
The relief of two men shaking hands shows two bearded men in a niche under a shell-like canopy, shaking their right hands. They are dressed in under and overcoats and wear boots. One is holding a box or diptych , the other is holding a scroll in his left hand. The original of the relief is exhibited in the Roman lapidary.
The location, function and meaning of the relief are unknown. The 86 cm high relief stone from Lettenkeuper bears two "undoubtedly spurious" inscriptions, "Concordia" at the top and "IN" at the bottom. According to Philipp Filtzinger , it is possibly "the representation of Concordia ", the Roman goddess of harmony.
inscription
A sandstone block with an inscription is placed under the relief. The carved Latin-German epigram is a modern creation by the Württemberg writer Josef Eberle . After the Second World War he was the founder and editor of the Stuttgarter Zeitung for many years and published poems in Swabian dialect and in Latin. Its two distiches (one each in Latin and German) interpret the relief as a welcome greeting for visitors to the Roman Lapidarium:
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Intrans hospes, ave! Tibi conscia saxa loquentur. |
Greetings to you, visitor, first! Now listen to the talking stones: |
literature
- Barbara Branscheid, Helmut Linde: Baedeker travel guide Stuttgart . Mairdumont, Ostfildern 2014, ISBN 978-3-8297-9302-5 , pp. 251 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Philipp Filtzinger : Hic saxa loquuntur: Roman stone monuments in the Lapidarium Stiftsfruchtkasten and in the exhibition "The Romans in Württemberg" in the Old Castle = This is where the stones talk. Aalen 1980.
- Ferdinand Haug , Gustav Sixt : The Roman inscriptions and sculptures of Württemberg. Commissioned by the Württemberg History and Antiquity Association . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1900, OCLC 19078167 ( archive.org ).
- Stefanie Hoffmann: Roman gods reliefs in Baden-Württemberg . 1997, ISBN 3-8386-0123-8 ( Diplom.de ).
- Gustav Sixt : The Stuttgart [Roman] Lapidarium. In: State Gazette for Württemberg, special supplement. 1896, pp. 332-343.
Web links
- The Roman lapidary. (PDF) on landesmuseum-stuttgart.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Roman lapidary. (PDF, p. 3) at landesmuseum-stuttgart.de.
- ↑ Nina Willburger : Where stones tell a story. The Roman Lapidarium in Stuttgart. on klett.de
- ↑ Stuttgart Tour - Multimedia Culture Portal - State Museum Württemberg - Roman Lapidarium. In: stuttgart-rundgang.de. studios dell'arte, stuttgart-rundgang.de, accessed on June 4, 2016 .
- ↑ The Roman lapidary. (PDF, p. 24) at landesmuseum-stuttgart.de.
- ↑ Roman stone monuments: Altar for Luna. ubi-erat-lupa.org, accessed June 8, 2016 .
- ↑ The Roman lapidary. (PDF, pp. 21–22) at landesmuseum-stuttgart.de.
- ^ Ferdinand Haug, Gustav Sixt: The Roman inscriptions and images of Württemberg. P. 206. (With better illustration and description of the relief, archive.org ).
- ^ Ferdinand Haug, Gustav Sixt: The Roman inscriptions and images of Württemberg. P. 369.
- ^ Philipp Filtzinger: Hic saxa loquuntur. .... P. 4, 58-60; Ferdinand Haug, Gustav Sixt: The Roman inscriptions and sculptures of Württemberg. Pp. 369-370, (number 478 archive.org ).
- ^ Philipp Filtzinger: Hic saxa loquuntur. .... Pp. 4-5.