Wherever we look, our eyes catch sight of various messages in underpasses, on house walls, train cars or on toilet doors. Often enough to the annoyance of the owners and residents. But they are formulas for communication. Some are easier to understand, others are codified according to group affiliations and cannot be interpreted by the "normal consumer".
If you look around in public and busy spaces, you quickly get the idea that people seem to have an urgent need to decorate walls, mark places with doodles and/or leave targeted messages, tell stories and myths, make political statements or simply immortalize themselves...
And this urge has probably always existed!
Even in the Stone Age 50,000 years ago, people left signs, symbols or figures on stones, artifacts or cave walls that were not originally intended for this purpose. Finds from caves near Essing bear witness to this: the carving of a mammoth on a tusk fragment or depictions of wild horses on limestone slabs.
Throughout human history, all over the world, examples of communication can be found on walls, masonry or on stone and rock slabs. From simple carvings to colorful huge painting compositions. And even today, some forms and techniques are much more similar than you might think.
The new special exhibition "WallArt. 50,000 years of color on the wall" promises a journey through time and space - from the Stone Age and Sulawesi to today, right on the museum's doorstep. From enigmatic handprints of the past to screamingly colorful "damage to property".
Supported by the Kulturfonds Bayern
The museum focuses on the field of archaeology. Thanks to the excavations in the area of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, a seamless continuity of settlement from the Neanderthals of the Altmühl Valley to the elevation of the town of Kelheim can now be shown.
The history of the Kelheim area is presented on the first floor in 8 islands of a showcase landscape, with each island dedicated to one period. Original finds are supplemented by plans of the excavation findings, graphic reconstructions and models. Illustrations show how our ancestors hunted mammoths 80,000 years ago, made tools 20,000 years ago or cast bronze 4,000 years ago. The reconstruction of a burial chamber from Riedenburg-Haidhof shows the burial customs of 2,600 years ago. Models of the first houses in human history and the huge city complex of the Celtic oppidum Alkimoennis on the Michelsberg and the predecessor city of Kelheim at the time of Charlemagne illustrate the gradual development of the city.
The town history on the 1st floor is themed "Kelheim - town by the river". Built in the 13th century by the Wittelsbach dynasty in the flood plain, the location between the Danube and Altmühl determined the town and the lives of its inhabitants. Fishermen and boatmen are mentioned as early as 1300. In the 14th/15th century there must have been a large shopper's workshop here. The name of the town was even transferred to a certain type of ship; a Kelheimer was always understood to be the largest ship (42 m long) in a boat train on the Danube. The town history section also shows where and what the people of Kelheim lived and what trades they practiced
Copyright 2025 © All rights Reserved.
