The Gelduba Roman camp has an eventful history.
Two years after the bloody Bataverschlacht in 71 AD, an auxiliary camp was built on the site on the Rhine, in the area of today's Krefeld, which was later destroyed and rebuilt several times, which archaeological research from recent years has further shed light on.
Settlements around the actual camp emerged or were enlarged and consolidated, workshops and hostels emerged, half-timbered buildings and streets.
At some point there was massive destruction in the northern part of the settlement.
And a certain Barsemias, son of Barlaha, scratched his name on a clay pot - in Aramaic characters.
Tilman Spreckelsen
Editor in the features section.
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The terra sigillata shard from the vicinity of Gelduba is part of an exhibition that is dedicated to “Life on the Limes” and is in turn in a larger context: Under the title “Rome's flowing borders” are already in Detmold, Xanten and Bonn Exhibitions on the Lower Germanic Limes, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site last summer (FAZ from July 28, 2021), two more, one in Haltern am See and one in Cologne, open in March and April. They set different priorities, in terms of content and in the choice of their methods, for example with regard to the desired participation of the visitors. But they all have to ask themselves, how do you actually display that, a wet frontier of the Roman Empire?
It is obvious that in reality the Limes can not only be viewed as a rigid border that spatially separated the Romans and barbarians from one another and was supposed to preserve this state - the range of its functions, especially as far as the bases are concerned, ranged from the at different times Basis for military operations for further conquest via the regulation of trade relations to the transfer of culture in the direction of subjugated areas. This also applies to that section of the Limes on the Rhine, which was also used as a natural trade route. At the same time, as has become increasingly clear through archaeological field research in recent years, a considerable military contingent of the Romans was concentrated on the left bank of the Rhine.the Classis Germanica, based in what is now Cologne-Marienburg, the Legionen.
The exhibition in Bonn is structured around three focal points that are closely interwoven: The curators Tünde Kaszab-Olschewski and Susanne Willer are concerned with the military and civil life of the population under Roman rule in the Bonn area as well as their mobility by water and on land.
They draw on the rich holdings of the museum, supplemented by loans.
And while many of the exhibits are not unique in their type, they do surprise in their particularly good state of preservation, in their beauty or in the fact that they appear to have been taken directly from life, such as an unfinished limestone sundial right from the start Bonn.
Who needs multimedia?
In fact, this is the greatest asset of the cleverly staged exhibition, which largely dispenses with multimedia: the way the archaeological material has been selected and arranged here, the context and the sequence of the individual departments give the visitor the strangely ahistorical feeling as if through To see a crack in the door into everyday life from almost two thousand years ago. It is least evident in the first part of the exhibition, which is dedicated to the military and contains weapons and helmets - including one that has been modified for the special anatomy of the person wearing it - medical tools such as scalpel handles, tweezers or retractors, writing tools , the tomb of a Germanic horseman named Reburrus who served in the Roman military,or a small Mithras altar with access from the back to enable lighting inside.
While this area is shown in the large stairwell of the building, the actual exhibition rooms, which are fluidly connected to each other, deal with the everyday lives of those who lived in or had settled in the respective military camp, who worked or produced for the military. They traded and used the Rhine for this, which is shown here by amphorae, but also by finely executed fittings of ship beams, or they were on the Roman roads and passed elongated settlements, distance stones, sanctuaries along the way or tombs. A group of five clay figurines from the second century, found in the area of today's Mülheim-Kärlich, shows such a journey, and utensils such as money, knives, amulets or a drinking bottle made of clay represent thewhat was sensibly carried with you, while today's visitors are above all amazed by the quality of the exhibits, that of the large writing boards, the weights decorated with faces, the glass grave goods.
The last stop of the exhibition is dedicated to life in the country. On display are tools, a magnificent cider pot made of lead, a grain swing from a well in Erkelenz-Borschemich or wooden bath accessories that have miraculously survived the times despite their organic materials. However, the large window pane made of tinted glass, the shards of which were found in the area of a villa rustica in Garzweiler, is spectacular. They must have been everywhere where Roman prosperity was concentrated during this period, but few have come to us. In any case, the picture that could have presented itself to the barsemias in the Rhineland takes on unexpected contours at such moments.
Rome's flowing borders:
life on the Limes.
LVR State Museum Bonn;
until May 29th.
The joint catalog for all five exhibitions costs 40 euros.