Museum Carnuntinum — Attraction in Gemeinde Bad Deutsch-Altenburg

Tiberius, who later became Emperor, erected a winter camp in the Carnuntum area in the year 6 AD. This was the beginning of 400 years of Roman presence in Carnuntum. Under Emperor Claudius amilitary camp was erected around the year 54 AD where today’s market town of Bad DeutschAltenburg is situated, which is where the city of Carnuntum originated. A civilian settlement, the socalledcanabae legionis, grew up around the military camp and together they formed the military city. Towards the end of the 1st century AD a civilian settlement came into being in today’s town of Petronell-Carnuntum, which later became the civilian city of Carnuntum. This was not under military command but had its own civilian administration. Around the year 124 AD Carnuntum became a municipality under Emperor Hadrian and was known as Municipium Aelium Karnuntum. At this time the province of Pannonia was reorganized into Upper Pannonia (pannonia superior) and Lower Pannonia (pannonia inferior). Carnuntum became the capital of the province of Upper Pannonia and the seat of the governor. Emperor Marcus Aurelius conducted the campaign against the Marcomanni in Carnuntum during the years 171-173 AD and it has been verified that he wrote the second book of his famous “Meditations” here. In the year 193 AD the then ruling governor Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor by his troops in Carnuntum, and he then raised Carnuntum to the status of a colonia (Colonia Septimia Aurelia Antoniniana Karnuntum). Carnuntum reached its greatest expansion at the end of the 2nd, beginning of the 3rd century, covering an area of some 10 sq. kilometres with more than 50,000 inhabitants. Carnuntum thus became the second most important city north of the Alps. There were three specific reasons that caused Carnuntum to flourish: it is strategically situated on the so-called Altenburger plateau. Along this stretch of river, the south bank of the Danube is some 30 metres higher than the north bank. For more than 400 years a Roman legion and an ala, a troop of cavalry, were permanently stationed in Carnuntum. There were therefore about 6,000 troops here (5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry). In addition, Carnuntum was situated at the crossroads of two of the most important ancient long-distance trade routes, the Amber Road from the Baltic to Aquileia, and the Limes Road from west to east along the north border of the Roman Empire. Carnuntum became once more the centre of world politics for the last time in the year 308 AD. Emperor Diocletian (who had actually retired) called a conference of emperors on 11 November 308 AD, in order to reorganize the system of tetrarchy and to bring stability to the Empire. Emperor Constantine emerged as the new strong man in the ensuing conflicts with the tetrarchs. Thus inCarnuntum the way was paved indirectly for the rapid spread of Christianity, which culminated in theEdict of Milan in the year 313 AD. Carnuntum was mentioned for the last time in the Roman official calendar in the year 430 AD. Afterthis date Carnuntum sank into oblivion, as the former Vindobona, today’s Vienna, gained...

If you’re walking, it’s not probably worth it. I appreciate small historic spaces and museums. But there’s not much here. If you’ve been to Rome, Pompeii or even Bologna, you’ve seen more than this. It’s different if you want to specialize or specifically understand or therapy pieces only found in the area. But they won’t be in anything new or different than you’ve seen elsewhere.. The museum is so far away. It is an hour and six minutes away (walking) from the main ruins and rebuilds. It’s 20 minutes from the nearest train station and it’s just not worth it unless you’re in a car. The other thing I’ll add is that they do not have a water fountain, which seems to be a theme for everything here. there are lockers and toilets you can use. There is a two euro guidebook, which is mainly helpful at the other site. It doesn’t have a lot to offer for the actual museum itself.. in fact the guide is basically a reprint of things you can find on the website. One thing that this website should do is to explain in real time the distance between these sides and should offer a walking itinerary and itineraries to simplify the visit.. on top of this the walk from the train station to the museum have some restaurants and hotels, but there’s nothing really open on a Sunday and there’s no place to just pop in and get a drink or snack. all in all I very sorry I wasted a couple hours of my one free day. And if you’ve been anywhere else in the world with Roman ruins, you’ll not...

A nice museum with a reasonable amount of content on the local archaeological finds from Bad-Deutsch and neighbouring Carnuntum. My only wish is that the collection was a bit larger and perhaps more varied in what is on display - as was mentioned, it would be helpful if more of the description cards were translated into English. As someone with a background on ancient art, architecture and Roman religion I found that it was a nice presentation of local finds related to early Christianity and the provincial religious practices of devotion to mystery cults of Jupiter Dolichenus, Magna Mater as well as the usual Mithras/Mithraeum displays seen elsewhere in the provinces that you can find at other archaeological sites with large military presence/legions.

A pleasant visit that is one of the stops on the 'Carnuntum Visitor's Passport' card where you can obtain one of the memento coins if you visited the other three sites on the same day. I believe this site had the coin for Marcus Aurelius.

Woman at the front desk was chatty and helpful. Spoke good English. Sold me the additional 1 EUR book/booklet with some photos from the museum and Carnuntum sites. Parking lot is to the side of the building opposite to where the...