Archaeological State Museum of Baden-Wuerttemberg

About

The Archaeological State Museum of Baden-Württemberg (ALM) in Konstanz is responsible for preserving, researching. and presenting archaeological finds from throughout the federal state. Together with the House of History Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart, it is one of only two museums whose purview extends over the entire state of Baden-Württemberg. The exhibition space — including that of its branch museums — is 8,717 m2 (93,830 sq ft).

On 8 June 1990, the state government under Lothar Späth decided to establish a State Museum of Archaeology. The founding director was Dieter Planck, the state archaeologist and president of the State Office for Monument Preservation of Baden-Württemberg. Since suitable space for the state museum could not be found in Stuttgart and the state-owned Petershausen Abbey was vacant, it was decided to establish a branch museum in Konstanz that could later be transferred to a still to be built building in the capital city of Stuttgart. This plan was given up in 2012 and the ALM became an independent, state-run museum that today (2025) is responsible for eight affiliated branches.

The ALM has had six directors since 1990. The scientific head of the museum is also the president of the State Agency for Monument Preservation in Stuttgart. Daily operations are overseen by the "permanent representative of the director" ( Ständige Vertretung der Wissenschaftlichen Direktion ) at the museum offices in Konstanz. In Januar 2023 archaeologist Nina Willburger succeeded Barbara Theune-Großkopf in this position.

The main exhibit area is located in the convent building of the former Petershausen Abbey of the Benedictines in Konstanz on the southern shore of Lake Constance. The ALM oversees additional collections and exhibition sites throughout the state.

The Abbey's Baroque style building consisted of rows of Monastic cells arranged along long corridors. This historical architecture has been largely preserved, although the walls of some cells have been removed to facilitate larger display areas as needed. The permanent displays of the museum were opened to the public on 14 March 1992.

An annex to the museum was opened on 18 September 2000 to house a 14-meter-long and 5-meter-wide barge that had been used to transport cargo in the 14th century. It had been discovered only ten years earlier.

The ALM houses extensive permanent exhibitions which include a selection of archaeological finds that represent a cross-section of the history of the region within the boundaries of Baden-Württemberg, ranging from the Paleolithic to the Early modern period. These exhibitions are displayed over three floors in a space of 3,000 m 2 (32,000 sq ft).

The following gives a selection of the topics on permanent display:

- Prehistoric Stilt houses in Alpine regions

- Model of an excavation site : Exploring the methods archaeologists employ to make their discoveries

- Dugout canoe, cargo vessel, steamship : the history of waterborne travel in southwest Germany

- The oldest excavated boat of Lake Constance, a medieval cargo barge discovered off-shore near Immenstaad.

- Stilt houses around Lake Constance and in Upper Swabia

- Ladenburg : archaeological finds among the remains of a Roman settlement with the Latin name Lopodunum

- Remains of a Roman settlement at Trossingen

- Living conditions in the cities and villages of the Middle Ages

- Recent archaeological finds within the city of Konstanz, including an interactive display of the city's development since the first Roman fortifications ( Kastell ) on the site of present-day city

- "Learning from Toilets ": What the excavations of sewage and latrines reveals about our history

- The Trossinger Leier, a lyre found in an Alemanni gravesite near Trossingen, dating to 580 CE. The lyre is nearly perfectly preserved, one of only 15 known early medieval specimens.

- The Menhir von Weilheim a massive stone from the early Bronze Age