The small cup presented by museum director Anja Pütz in the Aschheim Museum shines in matt black. With all its pores, the vessel should radiate that its owners, who lived around 1300 to 800 BC in the area around today’s Aschheim, already drank from bronze – the metal was then what would be called “totally hip” today. “Back then there was a real hype about bronze,” says Pütz. But real bronze was rare and precious, so that many could not afford it. Some therefore resorted to a trick and coated ceramic vessels with a layer of graphite to make them look like metal vessels. So the black cup is more appearance than it is – and thus beautifully illustrates the motto of this year’s “Open Monument Day”.
The Bajuwarenhof in Kirchheim offers a journey into the Middle Ages.
(Photo: Angelika Bardehle)
After the day of action last year could only take place digitally, many museums, memorials and historical buildings will again open their gates to the curious on Sunday, September 12th. Under the motto “Being and appearances in history, architecture and monument preservation”, visitors can walk in the footsteps of the district’s past free of charge – from the Neolithic to the.
In the Aschheim Museum, the director and archaeologist Anja Pütz takes visitors into the different epochs of settlement from the first inhabitants of the region in the Neolithic around 4500 years ago through the Celts and Romans to the present day. True to the motto of the Monument Day, those interested can take a look behind the glow of many of the exhibits, including with the help of a microscope. It turns out that finds from excavations, which look inconspicuous from the outside, can often hide exciting things and help to classify finds correctly. In addition, Pütz explains the methods that experts use during excavations and then in the laboratory to bring the invisible to light.
In Aschheim you get an impression of the Bronze Age.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
In the Bajuwarenhof in Kirchheim, those interested are transported back to the early Middle Ages. The “Archaeological Open-Air Museum you can touch” consists of an agricultural farmstead that is faithfully reproduced as it could have been in southern Bavaria in the sixth to eighth centuries BC, including several gardens in which grain, vegetables, herbs and berries but also flax and various dye plants are grown. On the Open Monument Day, the Bajuwarenhof has the motto “Experience handicraft”: Visitors of all ages can experience live how textiles used to be made – it is woven, spun and dyed. Children can prove themselves in jewelry making and employees demonstrate how the Bavarians baked bread.
Classicism can be experienced in Ismaning Castle.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
Things are much more noble in Ismaning, however. On the occasion of the Open Monument Day, the castle opens its doors again after a long break. Local historian and museum director Christine Heinz guides you through the magnificent halls of the building that today houses the Ismaning municipal administration. The palace with its spacious park once served as the summer residence of the Freising Prince-Bishops, from 1816 onwards Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais and his wife Auguste Amalie, daughter of the Bavarian King Max I Joseph, lived here as Duke and Duchess of Leuchtenberg. Under their aegis, the palace complex was redesigned in a classical style. In addition to the castle, the museum in the castle park is also open, where the special exhibition “Almboden und Torfsoden” with a large treasure trove of old photographs tells interesting facts about soil formations and economic history around the Ismaninger Moos.
The Aschheim Museum (Münchner Straße 8) is open on September 12th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. At 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m., guided tours under the motto “Appearance and Reality” (approx. 60 minutes) start. The Bajuwarenhof Kirchheim (Bajuwarenstraße 11) can be visited from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Ismaning Castle and Castle Museum (Schloßstraße 3a) from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The 3G rule applies. More information at www.aschheimuseum.byseum.de, www.bajuwarenhof.de respectively www.schlossmuseum-ismaning.de.