Constance/Rome (gro) The fact that 2000 years ago Constance belonged to the Roman Empire (to the province of Raetia) has recently been brought back to the attention of many citizens of the southern German border town by one or the other festivity celebrating the anniversary of “600 years of the Constance Church Council”. What this meant in detail can also be experienced in the Landesmuseum on Sternenplatz in Constance. It is currently being made particularly clear in the Museum of Archaeology of the Canton of Thurgau in Frauenfeld. The exhibition “City, Land, River – Romans on Lake Constance” has opened there. Among other things, we learn that the new masters from the south ensured that such fine things as wine, oysters, figs, olive oil and spices from the Mediterranean region made their way into the Lake Constance region early on.
A densely populated region even then
The general theme of the exhibition in the capital of the Canton of Thurgau is the changes in the Lake Constance region after the conquest by the Romans from 15 BC onwards. During the time when the Lake Constance region belonged to the Roman Empire, the area was densely populated. This, as reported by the “Thurgauer Zeitung”, was shown among other things by finds in Bregenz or Eschenz in the western part of the Seerhein (our picture) as well as in numerous former manor houses around Lake Constance.
Ancient Bregenz had a temple district
In the east of the region, Bregenz (then: Brigantinum) became a Roman town with a temple district, public buildings and residential quarters. In the extension of the Seerhein, a street settlement with a bridge over the Rhine was built in Eschenz in Thurgau. There was a public bath, taverns, but also numerous shops such as turneries, potteries or shoemakers’ workshops, writes the “Thurgauer Zeitung”. The surrounding countryside was “farmed from around 120 estates”.
Until 18 February 2018
The exhibition “Stadt, Land, Fluss – Römer am Bodensee” (City, Country, River – Romans on Lake Constance) was conceived together with museums from Baden-Württemberg, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein and the Canton of St.Gallen. It will run until 18 February 2018.