Show transcript Play Pause

Römische Legionäre begrüßen die Besucher:innen

Welcome

Experience the world of the Romans – in the heart of Westphalia!

Haltern can rightly claim to be the best researched military base from the time of Emperor Augustus. One after another, several camps were built on the Silverberg site. Here you can see everything that made up a functioning legionary camp, here and probably elsewhere on other Roman military sites.

We have evidence of a so-called main camp with firm buildings in it, a mooring place for supply ships, traces of living quarters outside the camp, a naval base with boathouses and barracks as well as a road lined with tombs and a marching camp to the east.

Permanent exhibition

Visitors to the museum can inform themselves about the life of the legionaries on the Lippe as well as slipping into the role of a Roman man or woman. They can make their way through the exhibition with a soldier's heavy marching baggage or try to scratch words into the wax of a tablet with a stylus.

A reconstructed leather tent – once accommodation for six to eight legionaries  - has a surprise in store: a news video from the year 4 AD provides the news of “latest” events in Rome and Germania.

To the permanent exhibition

Platzhalter

Roman building site Aliso

Behind the museum you can see with your own eyes how gigantic Roman camps must have seemed. Get a vivid impression of what the Romans built here in double quick time. On their original sites parts of ditches  and walls as well as a gateway to a Roman camp have been reconstructed. This is the biggest reconstruction of this kind of wood and earth construction ever built. Over the next few years further buildings from the Roman time will be erected and filled with life. The Römerbaustelle Aliso gives an impression of what is to come.

The Roman Building Site is open from the end of March to the end of October.

Zur Römerbaustelle Aliso

Platzhalter

Romans for Aliso

“Varus, Varus, give me back my legions” Emperor Augustus is said to have cried out, when he heard in 9 AD of the defeat in Germania. Three whole legions had been wiped out! Now Augustus will get some of his legionaries back. In the one-time base camp of the 19th Legion, in Aliso in Haltern am See new legionaries and Roman women are sought who, from next season, will fill the camp with life.

Cooperating with the our friends, the troops of the I. Roemercohorte Opladen and  the Legio XIX Cohors III Bergkamen, the LWL-Römermuseum will be offering Roman fans “training”: how to become a Roman legionary or a Roman woman. Follow us on our blog and see how the “trainees” sew their tunics and make their leather sandals and much more!

Zum Projekt

Römer mit Beschriftung Aliso braucht dich

Research and history

The discovery of the Roman camp in Haltern goes back to the year 1816 when Supreme President  Ludwig Baron von Vincke reported on the excavation of three grave mounds with Roman finds near the “St. Annaberge” near Haltern on Lippe.

In 1838 Major Friedrich Wilhelm Schmidt, too, recognized traces of a Roman camp on the Annaberg, southwest of the town of Haltern on the north bank of the Lippe. Based on his observations, investigations were started in 1899 by the Westphalian Antiquities Commission to be then continued annually by the Imperial Archaeological Institute.

Today ongoing research is the responsibility of the Provincial Roman Section of the LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen.

 

Forschung und Geschichte

Sanitätsrat Dr. Alexander Conrads mit Alexander Conze und Carl Schuchhardt auf den Ausgrabungen "Am Wiegel"

A museum to experience yourself

Visitors to the museum can inform themselves about the life of the legionaries on the Lippe as well as slipping into the role of a Roman. Making their way through the museum with the a soldier's heavy marching baggage or trying to scratch words into the wax of a tablet with a stylus. A reconstructed leather tent – accommodation for six to eight legionaries – has a surprise in store:  a news video from the year 4 AD provides news of ”latest”events in Rome and Germania. An audio-programme focuses on the legionaries' money worries 2000 years ago and tackles the question of bribery. All in a light-hearted fashion!

Don't worry: you don't have to know any Latin to visit this museum. All the original  texts are translated; all the finds are explained. The exhibits provide an impressive survey of  almost every area of  the legionaries' everyday lives. In connection with images, texts and models, the objects provide a lively picture of the time.

Previous slide: ( of )

Next slide: ( of )

Platzhalter

On the move with marching baggage

Do you want to feel how heavy the legionaries' baggage really was? Or just to write, like 2000 years ago, on a wax tablet? Then just do it – in our museum!

Platzhalter

Crafts that you can grasp

Touch them, try them out, do them yourself! Experience the Romans live. In the museum, in the museum grounds, in a creative seminar, in the Roman Days ("Römertage").

Platzhalter

On the move digitally

We use the most modern media and presentation techniques to tell you the thrilling stories behind our exhibits.

Platzhalter

Investigate history

Back then – what was it like for the Romans, here in Haltern am See, so far away from home? 1200 original finds tell you all about it.

© Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL)