Römerlager im Zeughaus

With Conrad Peutinger's collection of Roman inscriptions, which appeared in 1505, there is a concrete date for the beginning of antiquities research. In this work, 23 monuments of the Roman town and its surroundings were presented. His great-nephew Markus Welser presented a history of Augsburg in 1594. He also succeeded in publishing a copy of the Tabula Peutingeriana, the world-famous only surviving antique road map, which has been part of the UNESCO World Document Heritage since 2007. The centuries that followed brought spectacular individual finds (Oberhauser pillar tomb 1709, horse's head 1769). In the early 19th century the Bavarian government director von Raiser took care of the collection and founded the "Antiquarium Romanum" in 1822. The Historical Society for Swabia was founded in 1834 and took over the holdings. This started the constant expansion and a journey that has continued to this day. Initially, the pieces were housed on the ground floor of St. Anna College. In 1855 it moved to the newly founded Maximilianmuseum. The stone monuments were housed in the area of ​​today's café, imprints of the pedestals can still be seen in the floor slabs.

In 1966, the rebuilt monastery church of St. Magdalena was opened as a new Roman Museum. From the beginning of the 1980s, scientific processing was in the hands of the newly established Stadt Archäologie. In the spring of 2017, the move to the Central Depot of Archaeology began, one of the foundations for a new Roman Museum. In December 2012, the church had to be closed for structural reasons, and in 2015 an interim exhibition opened in the Zeughaus, which now replaces the museum for an indefinite period. The Dominican Church will remain closed until further notice for the renovation work.

After the Römisches Museum was closed indefinitely, a new exhibition of known and unknown objects was put together. With the exhibition title „Römerlager – Das römische Augsburg in Kisten/ Roman camp - Roman Augsburg in boxes" we are showing great and impressive finds in seven subject areas. The city's namesake, the sublime Augustus, greets visitors in the form of a life-size statue. The Roman military camp in Augsburg-Oberhausen, with its weapons and armor parts, was set up as a supply depot as part of the Alpine campaign around the turn of the century. If you want to get an idea of ​​the Roman road network, you can do so with our 7 meter long illustration of the Tabula Peutingeriana. Trade goods of all kinds, a treasure trove of gold coins, the original wooden remains of a shipping pier that is almost 1800 years old and the god of commerce Mercury show the commercial character of the town of Augusta Vindelicum. How did the Romans eat? This shows a Roman dining room, a triclinium, in which one can also lie down at the table. The diverse ancient world of gods is presented as well as legacies from the death cult. Scientific methods are not neglected: newer theories on the famous Augsburg horse head and the method of determining the age using the wood used are explained. Smaller special presentations on tiny gems or on changing topics in the entrance area complete the Römerlager. A massive accumulation of storage boxes on the back wall of the exhibition, with their inscriptions, refer to many important pieces that we currently have to withhold from the public without a new museum.