Wetterau Museum

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Wetterau Museum
Friedberg - Stadtmuseum.jpg
View of the building from the west
Data
place Friedberg (Hesse)
Art
Cultural history museum
opening around 1900
operator
City of Friedberg (Hessen) / Wetterauer Museumsgesellschaft e. V.
management
Johannes Koegler
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-049510

The Wetterau Museum in Friedberg , Hesse, shows cultural-historical exhibits and archaeological finds from Friedberg and the Wetterau . The early epochs of human history in the fertile cultural landscape are represented by numerous archaeological finds. Significant finds from the Celts as well as from the Roman period form a focus . The medieval history of the imperial city, castle and burgraviate Friedberg is illustrated by numerous exhibits. The modern-day exhibition picks up on outstanding themes and events from regional history, including a large-scale exhibition on the mechanization of agriculture and memories of Elvis Presley.

location

The museum is located in the neighborhood of the city ​​church between Haagstrasse and Schnurstrasse (entrance Haagstrasse 16). The museum can be reached on foot from Friedberg train station and Friedberg's old town. Parking is available immediately to the west and in the multi-storey car park on Alte Bahnhofstrasse.

The Kunstverein Friedberg with exhibition rooms and the district archeology of the Wetterau district are also represented in the same building .

History of the museum

The Wetterau Museum was founded shortly before 1900, when numerous finds from Roman times were discovered in Friedberg . The Friedberg History Association was also founded at that time. The location of the museum changed several times. It was initially located in the sergeant's building of the Grand Ducal Castle at Friedberg Castle, since 1901 in the Augustinian School , from 1905 in Usagasse 38 until it moved to its current location in 1913. Due to the First World War , however, it could only be opened at the new location on May 16, 1920. There it remained with the exception of the relocation of the stocks in World War II . The name changed several times at the beginning ( Historical Museum of the City and the Wetterau and Wetterau Museum ). The two-story museum building was built in 1882 for municipal horse stables and a trade school and is a listed building.

Due to fire safety deficiencies, the museum is currently only open on weekends. The necessary expenses for the fire protection renovation and operational losses are currently also leading to a questioning of the current location of the museum.

collection

View of the special exhibition 2010
Bronze Age grave from Wölfersheim (BZ level Wölfersheim)

The Wetterau Museum documents with its exhibits the life of the people in Friedberg and the Wetterau from prehistory to the 20th century. Due to this cultural and historical orientation, a special focus is on the archaeological department, which takes up a large part of the ground floor. On the first floor there are mainly medieval and modern objects. A large part of the upper floor is reserved for longer special exhibitions. In 2010 one was dedicated to Friedberg's Jewish history. Until September 2011 an exhibition about archaeological finds from the new building route of the federal highway 3a followed.

The Wetterau in prehistory and early history

The fertility of its loess loam soil made the Wetterau a preferred settlement area in prehistoric times; Numerous outstanding finds from all archaeologically relevant epochs are listed here. Stone artifacts from the Paleolithic are among the oldest known finds in the region. With the transition to agriculture and permanent residence, there are numerous finds of Neolithic cultures in the Wetterau , which are represented in the museum by ceramics, clay idols and stone tools.

Burials with sometimes rich gifts give an insight into the different cultures and their legacies. Of these, the inventory of a woman's grave deserves special mention, which was an eponymous site for the Wölfersheim stage of the Bronze Age .

The early Middle Ages are also represented in numerous showcases with grave inventories, initially with Alemannic finds and Franconian finds since the 6th century AD .

  • The oldest shown finds belong to the Paleolithic Age

  • Celtic bronze jewelry

  • Alemannic grave finds from the Wetterau

Celts in the Wetterau

The museum is the starting point on Keltenstrasse . A department, redesigned in 2002, uses regional finds to illustrate the living conditions of the Celts, including house building, handicraft techniques, agriculture, trade, nutrition and religion. In addition to finds and reconstructions, maps and large photos provide insights into a millennium of Celtic culture.

Roman times on the Wetteraulimes

Coin treasure from Ober-Florstadt, 1136 denarii.

The Roman era is particularly extensive and of high quality. The main attraction is the presentation of the Ober-Florstadt coin treasure , which consists of 1136 denarii . The grave inventory from the grave field of a villa rustica near Wölfersheim-Wohnbach is a rare stroke of luck for archeology , because grave finds from the vicinity of these facilities are relatively rare. The magnificent furnishings suggest that the woman buried was a member of the owner's family.

The stone monuments from Roman times are very numerous, including a Mithras relief and two cautopates (torchbearers). Two inscriptions by beneficiarii consulares also come from the Friedberg Mithraeum . Two stone monuments from the Kapersburg fort are exhibited, an Epona relief and the building inscription from the horreum . The stone collection is completed by a Leugen stone from the Civitas Taunensium , which is located in front of the staircase. It is one of the latest inscriptions from the immediate hinterland of the Limes before the so-called Limesfall , dated to the year 250 AD.

Other showcases show finds on the subjects of trade and handicrafts, writing and reading, Roman cuisine and soldiers' life on the Limes . A villa rustica is reproduced as a model.

  • Grave inventory from the grave field of a villa rustica near Wölfersheim-Wohnbach

  • Beneficiary inscriptions from the Mithraeum Friedberg (CIL XIII 7399-7400)

  • Epona -relief from the Limes fort Kapersburg .

  • Leugenstein CIL XIII 9123

“Highlights” on the history of the town and Friedberg Castle

The section on the upper floor of the museum presents the history of the imperial city Friedberg, the imperial castle and the burgraviate of Friedberg . A model shows one of the largest castle complexes in Germany together with the city. Three historical views from the 16th century, one of which is over three meters wide, bring the imperial city to life in the late Middle Ages . Other exhibits belong to the town church and the Jewish community in Friedberg, of which a ritual bath has been preserved in the old town .

The so-called "Luther Sword", a two-handed sword that was attributed to Imperial Herald Kaspar Sturm , is also on display in this section . The sword has been borrowed more often in special exhibitions, especially in the current Luther decade . It was acquired by descendants in 1841 through a Friedberg bookseller for 200 guilders and was first given to the museum on permanent loan. In the 1970s it was finally donated to the city of Friedberg. The spiral-shaped ends of the cross- guard show that it belongs to the so-called German type , which was not yet widespread around 1520. More recent studies therefore date the sword to the late 16th or early 17th century.

Rather unusual in the historically oriented museum is a collection of works of art from the 20th century with works by Hans Arp , Lucio Fontana , Hermann Goepfert and Ernst Wilhelm Nay . They came to the museum with the estate of Friedberg poet and essayist Fritz Usinger and have a permanent place on the first floor.

From sickle to threshing machine

A large-scale exhibition on the ground floor connects to the prehistory and early history. The reason for the high space requirement is the topic of modernization and mechanization of the rural working environment in the Wetterau 1800-1959 . Starting with simple farm tools, the range of exhibits extends to a Lanz threshing machine and a Lanz Bulldog from 1927.

  • View of the exhibition on the mechanization of agriculture

  • Lanz threshing machine

Turn-of-the-century grocery store

Grocery store at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

The inventory of the Friedberg retail and wholesale business of the Wagner and Steinhauer families came to the museum as a gift from the Steinhauer family. It is located on the first floor with the assortment and presentation on display at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The initial (1792) range of everyday goods, glass and porcelain was later expanded into a retail and wholesale business, with a coffee roasting, tobacco wholesaling and trading in lighting items added.

View of the Elvis exhibition.

The Army Home of Elvis Presley

Following a special exhibition on the 25th anniversary of his death in 2002, a section on probably Friedberg's most famous guest, Elvis Presley , was integrated into the city history exhibition . Presley was stationed as a soldier in the Ray Barracks in Friedberg between 1958 and 1960 and lived in Bad Nauheim . The exhibition shows, among other things, pictures of Elvis as a soldier, from Friedberg in the late 1950s, and some original objects.

The museum courtyard

View into the museum courtyard, in the center of the picture the figure from the Georgsbrunnen

The inner courtyard of the museum is used for museum educational events as well as for the exhibition of stone monuments. Here, among other things, there is a baroque statue of Saint George with the dragon from the Georgsbrunnen in the castle. Furthermore, several parts of other Friedberg fountains as well as early modern grave slabs are exhibited. The tombstone of Friedberg Burgrave Johann Brendel von Homburg is in the gate passage .

literature

  • Dietwulf Baatz and Hans-Günther Simon in: D. Baatz and Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (eds.): The Romans in Hessen . 3. Edition. 1989. Licensed edition Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , pp. 305-311.
  • Sabine Cronau: Wetterau Museum - Grim Reaper and "Urbembel of Hesse". In: Hendrik Markgraf (Ed.): Museumslandschaft Rhein-Main. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-7973-0490-0 , pp. 58-60.
  • Johannes Kögler: The Wetterau Museum. Historical museum for Friedberg and the Wetterau. Published by the municipal authorities of the district town of Friedberg (Hesse) (Friedberg 2007).
  • Museums in Hessen. Published by the Hessischer Museumsverband, Kassel 1994, pp. 165–167, ISBN 3-9800508-8-2
  • Wetterau Museum - Regional Limes Information Center of the Wetterau. In: District Committee of the Wetteraukreis (Ed.): Discover the Romans! Excursion destinations in the Wetterau. Friedberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-030758-4 , pp. 100f.
  • Wetterau aristocratic landscape in the 18th and 19th centuries. Class representation in the age of the dissolution of feudal society. Department catalog 1982 Wetterau Museum Friedberg (Hesse). Published by the City Council of Friedberg, Bindernagel, Friedberg 1982, ISBN 3-87076-036-2 .

Web links

Commons : Wetterau Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Wionski: cultural monuments in Hesse. Wetteraukreis II, Part 2, Friedberg to Wöllstadt. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen, Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-528-06227-4 , p. 608. ( Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ) .
  2. ^ FAZ, Rhein-Main-Zeitung: Future of the Wetterau Museum uncertain , February 16, 2013, p. 54
  3. ↑ For the Wölfersheimer graves see Wolf Kubach: Graves between tumulus and urn field culture. The Bronze Age grave finds from Wölfersheim. In: Vera Rupp (Hrsg.): Archeology of the Wetterau. Bindernagel, Friedberg 1991, ISBN 3-87076-065-6 , pp. 175–186 (special edition of Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 40/1991) .
  4. ↑ On the coin treasure see Helmut Schubert: A denar find from the imperial period from the fort of Ober-Florstadt. In: Vera Rupp (Hrsg.): Archeology of the Wetterau. Friedberg 1991, pp. 271–285 or the same: Der Denarschatz von Ober-Florstadt. A Roman coin treasure from the cohort fort on the eastern Wetteraulimes. Wiesbaden 1994 (Archaeological Monuments in Hesse 118) .
  5. ↑ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum : CIL 13, 7399 , CIL 13, 7400
  6. ↑ Inscription: CIL 13, 07438 , for the relief see CSIR -D-03-12, 00163.
  7. ↑ CIL 13, 7441
  8. ↑ CIL 13, 9123
  9. ↑ For the Jewish history of Friedberg see Friedrich Battenberg: Friedberg und die Juden in Hessen. In: Bernd Heidenreich / Klaus Böhme (ed.): Hessen: History and Politics. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-17-016323-X , pp. 122-134 ( writings on the political regional studies of Hesse 5 ).
  10. ↑ See Harald Meller / Siegfried Bräuer (ed.): Fundsache Luther: Archaeologists on the trail of the reformer. Accompanying volume to the state exhibition "Fundsache Luther - Archaeologists in the footsteps of the reformer" in the State Museum for Prehistory Halle (Saale) from October 31, 2008 to April 26, 2009. Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2201-2 Cat. D15; Carl A. Hoffmann u. a. (Ed.): When peace was possible. 450 years of religious peace in Augsburg. Accompanying volume to the exhibition in the Maximilianmuseum Augsburg, Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2005, p. 311f. Cat. I.12.
  11. ↑ On the Usingers collection, see Johannes Kögler: ARP · FONTANA · GOEPFERT · NAY. Fritz Usinger as an art essayist. In: Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 39, 1990, Bindernagel, Friedberg, ISBN 3-87076-062-1 , pp. 5-147.
  12. ↑ Ulrike Lischewsky: Supermarket of the turn of the century - Steinhauer colonial goods store. In: Mitteilungen: Journal des Hessischer Museumsverband 19, 2000, p. 17f.
  13. ↑ Ulrike Lischewsky: A late date: back to the Friedberg of the 50s with Elvis. In: Mitteilungen: Journal des Hessischer Museumsverband 22 (2002), pp. 4–6; on Elvis in Friedberg and Bad Nauheim see Heinrich Burk: Elvis in Bad Nauheim and Friedberg. In: H. Burk / Hans-Ulrich Elter: The King in Germany 1958-1960. B + U-Verlag, Oldenburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-939870-55-5 , pp. 63-172; Heinrich Burk: Elvis in the Wetterau. The "King" in Germany from 1958 to 1960. Eichborn, Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-8218-0476-9 .
  14. ^ Johann Brendel von Homburg 1569, Friedberg. Grave monuments in Hesse until 1650. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on June 17, 2012 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 20 ′ 10 ″  N , 8 ° 45 ′ 21.1 ″  E