Lauriacum Museum

UNESCO - History - Architecture

Lauriacum, the Roman settlement located in the area of present-day Enns, was an important transportation hub. At the end of the 2nd century AD, Legio II Italica, the Second Italic Legion, established the only legionary camp in the province of Noricum here. The approximately 6,000 soldiers from this unit on display in the exhibition give a sense of the importance of such a base.

Founded in 1892, the Lauriacum Museum is located in the former town hall in the center of Enns. The permanent exhibition, redesigned for the 2018 Upper Austrian Provincial Exhibition, features over 1,200 artifacts, reconstructions, and multimedia stations, offering visitors a journey of discovery into the Roman past.

The archaeological finds from the site of the Roman legionary camp Lauriacum near Enns and its surroundings prompted a group of interested individuals to establish a museum association for Enns and the surrounding area in 1892. The owner of Ennsegg Castle provided a room in the castle’s steward’s quarters for the museum. In 1898, the association’s own collection was merged with the local history collection of the Old Town Hall and the Fürstenberg private collection. As a result, the association received permission to display its collection in the old council chamber.

This laid the foundation for what would later become the Museum Lauriacum. After a prolonged period of temporary housing due to bombings and a severe shortage of space in the postwar era, the exhibits could not be rearranged in the museum until 1964 and 1967. One of Austria’s most significant Roman-era public collections showcases the diversity of Roman culture at the most important military outpost on the Danube Limes in the province of Noricum. Among the numerous exhibits, the monumental inscription from the Lauriacum legionary camp, the military equipment, the funerary monuments, the numerous artifacts from everyday Roman life, the unique ceiling fresco, and a late antique fabric fragment are particularly noteworthy. Aspects of Enns’ medieval and modern city history are conveyed through, among other things, old views, historical weapons, the council chamber with its magnificent paintings, and the room displaying sacred art objects.

In 1988, the Lauriacum Museum received the Austrian Museum Prize and holds the Austrian Museum Seal of Quality. In preparation for the “800th Anniversary of Enns’s Charter of Municipal Rights,” extensive renovation work has been underway since fall 2011.

Programs for School Groups

In addition to a wide range of guided tours, we offer age-specific educational programs for school groups at the museum. You can find all the information at: enns-museen.at/schulen_und_workshops