Musée archéologique de Strasbourg

The museum traces its origins to the bequest of historian and diplomat Johann Daniel Schöpflin (1694-1771), who left his collection of antiquities to the city of Strasbourg. His collections of Gallo-Roman sculptures and inscriptions were first catalogued in 1773 and housed in the choir of the former Dominican church, where they remained for nearly a century. The Société pour la conservation des monuments historiques d'Alsace, founded in 1855, expanded and publicly displayed the municipal collections, but a large portion was destroyed in August 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War when Prussian artillery bombardment annihilated the first public archaeological museum along with the rest of Strasbourg's art collections; only some plaster casts of grave stelae stored elsewhere survived. From 1876, the Society laid the groundwork for a rapidly growing new collection initially reserved for research. The museum moved to the basement of the Palais Rohan in 1889, and was opened to the general public in 1896. Under the Swiss archaeologist Robert Forrer (director 1907-1940, though the French Wikipedia gives 1909-1939) and his son-in-law F.A. Schaeffer, the museum experienced extraordinary research and publication dynamism. After the Society ceded all its collections to the city of Strasbourg in 1946, the current museum was created and classified among France's thirty musées classés by the Ministry of Fine Arts. Jean-Jacques Hatt directed the museum from 1946 to 1981, giving it national stature through his scientific research in protohistory and Gallo-Roman archaeology. A thorough renovation from 1988 to 1992 completely reconfigured the premises and presentation, with architects Claude Pache and Jean-Claude Goepp designing spaces that respected the late-eighteenth-century architectural character of the vaulted rooms.

The collection covers human habitation in the region from approximately 600,000 BCE to around 800 CE, organized chronologically into four major sections: Prehistory, Protohistory, Gallo-Roman period, and Merovingian period. The museum transcends the strict history of Strasbourg and its immediate region to encompass a broader Alsatian dimension, constantly reinforced throughout its history. The core of the collection consists of numerous finds made since 1870 in the area of ancient Argentoratum and its surroundings. The chronological presentation is structured around major civilization milestones, key sites, and thematic approaches illustrated by numerous objects and reinforced by trilingual documentary panels. Since the beginning of construction of the new tramway network in and around Strasbourg, the collections have continued to grow steadily through numerous excavations.

Among the museum's most celebrated objects is the much-studied stele of the legionary Caius Largennius. The collection features significant finds from the Mithraea of Strasbourg-Koenigshoffen and Mackwiller, the mountain sanctuary of Mont Donon, the wagon grave of Ohnenheim, the phalerae from Ittenheim, and the Baldenheim spangenhelm. A small youthful male head in grey sandstone, discovered in the early 1950s near Strasbourg Cathedral on what is now Place Gutenberg, is regarded as a portrait of Emperor Caracalla and was separately classified as a Monument historique in 1979. An over-life-size head of a bearded mature man from Eckbolsheim, carved from the same stone and dated to approximately 235 CE, is occasionally identified as a portrait of Pupienus. The museum also displays findings from Gallo-Roman sanctuaries on Mont Donon and in Mackwiller, as well as Merovingian discoveries from around Erstein.

The museum occupies the extensive basement levels of the Palais Rohan, one of Strasbourg's most prominent historic buildings. The 1988-1992 renovation aimed to restore the appearance the spaces had at the end of the eighteenth century, highlighting the architecture of the ensemble of vaulted rooms that open both onto the terrace facing the Ill river and onto the palace's cour d'honneur. The museographic choices privileged simplicity and transparency to improve the legibility of the works displayed. Several spaces received specific staging: a reconstruction of an excavation site to make archaeologists' fieldwork more concrete, an evocation of a Gallo-Roman house, and a polychrome reconstruction of a large relief from the sanctuary of the god Mithras. This renovation was supported by significant financial partnership between the city, the State (Ministry of Culture/DRAC Alsace), and the council of Bas-Rhin.

The Musée archéologique de Strasbourg is located in the Palais Rohan in the city of Strasbourg, France. It is owned and operated by the city of Strasbourg as part of its municipal museum network. Since 1981, the museum has been directed by Bernadette Schnitzler, who has also published extensively on the museum's collections and history. The museum's website is https://www.musees.strasbourg.eu/musee-archeologique.