Römermuseum Kastell Boiotro - Passau

Description

The Roman Museum Fort Boiotro

The Roman Museum Fort Boiotro presents almost exclusively finds from Passau. They range from the Mesolithic period (8th to 6th millennium BC) to the end of the Roman Empire in 476 AD.

The tour through the museum is diverse. A film with a virtual reconstruction of Passau during Roman times, touchscreens and listening stations, numerous models and figurines, and comprehensible texts in German and English, along with over 600 exhibits, explain the 400-year Roman rule on the northern border of the empire. On the entrance level, a map and a timeline with historical events in time and space introduce the theme "Passau - Part of the Roman Empire".

The main theme in the basement is economy and trade from the Stone Age to Roman times in Passau. As early as the 5th millennium BC, flint was exported from Lower Bavaria to Lower Austria. The Celts traded, among other things, salt and graphite pottery from the 5th to the 1st century BC.

Even in Roman times, Passau was a border town between two provinces and two customs districts. The Roman customs station, with a radio play about the customs officer Florianus, explains the customs system. A showcase illustrates 400 years of Roman Terra Sigillata import.

The unique fragment of a shard from the civilian settlement Boiodurum Innstadt not only names the Latin name of a vessel - MORTARIUM - comparable to today´s mortar but also its purchase price: half a denarius. With prices for other everyday items and wages, the purchasing power of Roman money is explained.

In the basement, the visitor can explore with a light installation the most important exhibit in the Roman Museum; Fort Boiotro itself. The western fort wall and the structures from the Middle Ages to the present are accessible via touchscreen with brief explanations and offer a glimpse into the 1700-year building history of the house.

In a cinema room, a film (approx. 13 minutes) with a virtual reconstruction provides an overview of Roman Passau over more than four centuries.

The upper floor is themed around Passau in the middle imperial period (70-280 AD). Here, the visitor walks over a Roman road map from the 3rd quarter of the 4th century AD covering the entire Roman Empire. The so-called Peutinger Table runs the entire length of the room.

An 8 m² model of the fort and the surrounding village of Boiodurum illustrates military and civilian life.

Further finds tell stories from civilian life in Roman Passau. A listening station with the gravestone and figurine of a wine merchant provides information about Roman wine. The gravestone and figurine of the estate manager Flora touch on the supply from local farms and provide a remarkable example of the position of a woman in the northern part of the empire.

The last two rooms are dedicated to the Raetian Batavis and the Noric Boiotro: Passau in late antiquity. The written tradition, with the memorandum on the life of the diplomat Severinus, the excavated finds, and findings provide a comprehensive insight into the era of the crumbling Roman Empire, once again using Passau as an example. Several touchscreens and models - alone three from the late antique fort - try to elucidate this almost singular constellation.      

Opening hours:

March 1st - November 15th

Website:

www.boiotro.de