Archaeology Museum of the Joanneum Universal Museum

The Archaeology Museum of the Joanneum Universal Museum displays more than 1,200 objects which, as “traces of life”, form starting points for questions which have been moving people for thousands of years.

Highlights of the permanent exhibition are its world-class Hallstatt-period objects such as the cult chariot from Strettweg or the mask from Kleinklein, but also the most valuable Roman-period find from Styria, the silver cup from Grünau. In the lapidarium of the Archaeological Museum three floor mosaics and 96 selected Roman stones from Styria and the former Lower Styria are exhibited. The majority of the stones belong to the group of burial monuments.

The reorganization of the Prehistoric and Early Historic Collection, the Provincial Roman Collection and the Antiquities Cabinet of the Joanneum Universal Museum in 2009 was realized as an extension of the existing lapidarium in the park of Eggenberg Palace: In a coherent sequence of rooms, connected by a glass door, lapidarium and annex form a fully-fledged archaeological museum with the highlights of the archaeological collections of the Joanneum Universal Museum.

The subterranean, two-nave exhibition hall with a central skylight lantern is divided into three areas with different floor levels: Via a slightly ascending ramp – as a reference to the architecture of the lapidarium – visitors are led along the exhibits to the rear area of the show, which leads back evenly and connects new building, lapidarium and planetary garden. The central part of the hall – structured by concrete walls as open-separated units – presents itself as a sequence of rooms flooded with daylight. Here there are a resting zone for visitors, an “archaeology container” specially designed for children, and a “laboratory table” with an area for marginal exhibitions.

The highlights of the collection are accentuated in floor-to-ceiling display cases, whose positioning within the four main axis points of the new building also marks the route. The architecture and exhibition display of the Archaeology Museum combine to form a contemporary, elegant unit, a consistently thought-out spatial structure that exudes lightness and brightness.

The Archaeology Museum wants to convey how limited and fragmentary our knowledge of the past often is, so that some questions must remain unanswered. The exhibits, which are widely scattered in time and space, are therefore understood less in their contextual historical dimension than as archetypal constants of basic human needs. In the exhibition, the objects are understood as possible answers to questions about being human. Interviews conducted with Austrian celebrities are intended to provide food for thought.

In addition to the cult chariot from Strettweg, objects found in southern Styria are among the highlights of the Archaeology Museum.

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Opening hours and contact

Opening hours:
01 April to 31 October
Tue.-Sun. and holidays, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed 01 November to 31 March
but open until 22 December on a guided tour and by appointment.

Contact: 
Eggenberger Allee 90, A-8020 Graz
T: +43 316 8017 9560, archaeologie@museum-joanneum.at
www.museum-joanneum.at/archaeologiemuseum-schloss-eggenberg

The mask and hands from Kröll-Schmiedkogel hill in Kleinklein

The famous bronze mask from Kleinklein was sold to the Joanneum by the owner of the Kröllkogel hill in 1906. The two hands had already been sold to the museum in 1860. Post-excavations by the musem’s archaeologists, most recently by Diether Kramer in 1995, placed the valuable individual finds in a scientific context. The mask and the two hands, which can be dated to the first half of the 6th century B.C., had originally been attached to a wooden form and were presumably intended to preserve the image of the prince for eternity after the cremation of the corpse.

Protective weapons of the Hallstatt period princes from Grossklein

The two bell armors exhibited in the Archaeological Museum were purchased by the Joanneum in 1856 and 1905 from the finders and landowners from Kleinklein near Grossklein. They come from the Pommerkogel and Kröllkogel hills, the two richest Hallstatt period burial mounds in Styria. Characteristic for this type of armor is a bell-shaped expansion of the lower part, which allowed for a better mobility of the warrior. The breast and back shells of the armor were hammered from bronze sheet. A dense row of holes on the right side of the two shells shows that the halves were laced together. On the left side and on the shoulders, small bronze tubes were attached in pairs facilitating the putting on and taking off of the shell. The pectoral muscles and the shoulder blades were driven out plastically. A neck guard was sculpted on the back shell. The carapaces were probably made to measure. The larger armor from Kröllkogel hill was worn by a tall warrior of about 1.80 m in height. The armament of the Hallstatt elite also included helmets, such as the double-crested helmet from Kröllkogel hill. Characteristic for this helmet form, which was made of two riveted parts, were two parallel combs on the calotte, which were used for the attachment of a horsehair comb.

The silver skyphos from the Roman villa Grünau

The silver skyphos was discovered in 1990 during excavations by the Institute of Archaeology of the Karl Franzens University Graz in the Roman villa of Grünau near Gross St. Florian. Apparently the owner hid the valuable vessel in times of danger and later had no opportunity to recover it. The skyphos was made in the middle of the 1st century A.D. in central Italy. It is unknown whether the owner of the villa was Italic and brought the cup to Grünau himself, or whether he was a local Celt who bought the cup from a merchant. The valuable object was purchased by the Joanneum Universal Museum in 2008 to be presented in the Archaeology Museum.

Text: Mag. Karl Peitler