← Back to the mapThe Heidentor triumphal-arch ruin at Carnuntum, Austria
Modern photograph of the Heidentor at Carnuntum · Wikimedia Commons

Carnuntum

Pannonia · Roman province·Austria·Founded 40 CE

Major Danube legionary base and the civilian city that grew beside it. Marcus Aurelius later wrote parts of the Meditations here.

An uninhabited archaeological park and open-air museum near Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria, with reconstructed Roman houses, part of the UNESCO Danube Limes.

Excavation history

1884
Carnuntum Association (Alois Hauser, Josef Dell, Carl Tragau) — Founding of the Carnuntum Association in 1884 launched the first large-scale, systematic excavations of the legionary camp and civilian town.
1947
Erich Swoboda, on behalf of the province of Lower Austria — Resumed excavation of the civilian town, building on work begun in the 1930s; the exposed ruins were restored into an open-air museum in the 1950s.
2011
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection — A non-invasive ground-penetrating radar survey revealed a previously unknown gladiator school complete with individual cells and a circular training arena.

Notable finds

Mithras Killing the Bull
Excavators pulled this large relief of Mithras slaying the bull from Petronell-Carnuntum in 1894 — one of five known Mithraic shrines on the site, more than any other findspot north of the Alps.
Museum Carnuntinum, Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
Bronze Statuette of a Thraex Gladiator
A small bronze gladiator, armed and armored in the Thraex style with a curved sword and small shield, turned up in Carnuntum's amphitheatre district alongside a helmet visor and trident prongs — everyday debris of the fights themselves.
Museum Carnuntinum, Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
Cuirassed Statue of a Roman Commander
This officer's statue wears a breastplate carved with a bust of Jupiter Heliopolitanus, the Baalbek storm-god soldiers carried east to west along the empire's frontiers as they rotated between postings.
Museum Carnuntinum, Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
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