Conquer - Discover - Experience

The Petronell-Carnuntum Open-Air Museum, the Carnuntinum Museum in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and the Kulturfabrik Hainburg an der Donau turned history into an experience in 2011. The chronological arc of the provincial exhibition “Conquer - Discover - Experience in Roman Carnuntum” spanned from prehistoric times to the Roman era and the discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries, even into the future.

The province of Lower Austria invested more than 40 million euros in this provincial exhibition and in projects in the region. The exhibition and its accompanying program should “also provide important impulses for the development of cultural tourism facilities, for gastronomy, viticulture, public transport and also for increased cooperation with the Slovakian neighbor,” wrote Governor Erwin Pröll in the catalog. The aim is to sustainably increase the number of overnight stays and to exploit the economic potential in the region.

At the three locations of Petronell-Carnuntum, Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and Hainburg, visitors were taken on a journey through thousands of years of eventful history in the region. “As there was no continuous settlement after the end of antiquity, the majority of this largest Roman city on Austrian soil has hardly been built over - a stroke of luck from the point of view of archaeology, history and monument preservation,” said exhibition curator Franz Humer.

In the Petronell-Carnuntum open-air museum, visitors were transported to the heart of the Roman city through the reconstructed city palace Villa Urbana or the house of the cloth merchant Lucius. The reconstruction of a Roman thermal bath, a public bathing facility, which amazed visitors with its marble and painted furnishings as well as its heating system and water supply, was certainly one of the highlights of this exhibition in the open-air museum. The Carnuntinum Museum in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg is often referred to as the “treasure house” of the Carnuntum Archaeological Park. 1,200 valuable exhibits provided a comprehensive insight into life in the Roman city, especially through the show “Images of Gods - Images of Men”, which was specially designed for the provincial exhibition. In the former k.u.k. Tabakfabrik in Hainburg, which has had a new purpose as an exhibition and event center since 2007, the history of conquest and discovery was presented, from prehistory to the 21st century, from the Romans, Avars and Franks to the occupation of the Hainburger Au by nature conservationists in 1984 and the reconquest of nature through the creation of the Donau-Auen National Park, which was opened in 1996.

Is there a benefit that visitors can take away with them?” asked exhibition curator Ernst Bruckmüller in his catalog essay. “An exhibition is not a moral institution. But one insight is obvious: Exploratory discovery brought more blessings to mankind as a whole than the most successful conquests.”

Roman city of Carnuntum