We write the year 275/276 AD. The flames go out, the smoke is distorted, the excited shouting ebbs. Silence in Schwarzenacker following the invasion by the Alemanic People. Gradually, the extent is visible: the trading city, founded under Emperor Augustus, lies in rubble and ashes.
Some houses and cellar vaults have survived the onslaught. The floor plan of an Italo-Roman city can be seen until today. Although in the years after the destruction Schwarzenacker was re-populated and rebuilt - the former splendour and the sub-regional importance as a commercial and administrative centre was gone.
Originally built on a surface of 25-30 hectares and with a population of about 2,000, the settlement is partly rebuilt as an archaeological open-air museum. The partially reconstructed buildings, facades of houses, streets with covered walkways and sewers provide a lively insight into the everyday life of a Gallo-Roman transition town of 2000 years ago.
Today, as impressive as back then, the "House of the Ophthalmologist", with its distinctively homely decor, as well as the Cellar House, which owes its name to the grand cellar with five columns. At the crossroads at "Capitolinus" one could stop and eat a little snack or drink. The fresh bread, which was served for eating, came from the now reconstructed bakery. At the same time, the hostel offered lodging to traders, officials, tradespeople and travellers.
Through the park with its reconstructed Gallo-Roman temple for the god Mercury, one reaches the Baroque noble house. On the second floor of the pink mansion, witnesses of the past await the visitor of today. Numerous finds from the houses and workshops of the Roman craftspeople and artists are exhibited here and tell of their everyday life around the time of the birth of Christ. Going only one floor down one arrives in the second half of the 18th century. About thirty late baroque paintings have found the way from Munich to their old homeland as a permanent loan from the Bavarian State Art Collections. The landscapes and animals were commissioned by the Dukes of Zweibrück and Karlsberg.
Text source: official website
Photo by Carole Raddato from Frankfurt (DE) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
