Romano-Germanic Museum

The Roman-Germanic Museum ("Römisch-Germanisches Museum". RGM) is an important archaeological museum in Cologne, Germany. It has a large collection of Roman artifacts from the Roman settlement "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", on which modern Cologne is built. The museum protects the original place of a Roman town villa, of which the large Dionysus Mosaic remains in its original place in the basement now, and the related Roman Road just outside. In this respect the museum is an archaeological site.

The museum also is the institution to preserve the Cologne Roman cultural heritage, and therefore preserves wonderful Roman glass from Roman funerals and burial. This archaeological function also includes the supervision of the Cologne underground, which is now under construction.

Most of the museum's collection was formerly housed at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne until 1946. In the front of the museum the former northern town gate of Cologne with the inscription CCAA (for Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) is shown.

The museum

at the place of a 3rd century villa. The villa was discovered in 1941 during the construction of an air-raid shelter. In its main room there was the Dionysusmosaic. Since the mosaic could not be moved easily, the architects Klaus Renner and Heinz Röcke designed a museum around the mosaic. The museum's inner courtyards mimic the ancient villa's layout. In 1974 the construction was finished.

), inscriptions and pottery. These things deliver insight of Cologne, formerly Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium becoming the most important city in western Germany since its foundation.

In the night from 18th to 19th of January 2007, the storm Kyrill blew a sheet of plywood through the glass front of the Museum right onto the Dionysusmosaic. The damage was repaired within one week.

The museum has the world largest collection of local Roman glass production. [ [http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/p_crgglass.htm Irene's Travelogues - Cologne Photos, Romano-Germanic Museum ] ]

See also

* Cage cup
* Conchylia cup

Books

* Gerta Wolff: "The Roman-Germanic Cologne. A Guide to the Roman-Germanic Museum and City of Cologne". J. P. Bachem: Cologne, 2002, ISBN 3-7616-1371-7

External links

*Lang-de| [http://www.museenkoeln.de/english/roemisch-germanisches-museum/ Römisch-Germanisches Museum] Official page (www.museenkoeln.de)

Sources