Museum Kloster Banz (Museum Banz Monastery)
"And a maw yawned out at us giant-long ..." This is how the poet Victor von Scheffel described today's centrepiece of the museum in 1863, the 2.10 m long fossilised skeleton of a fish-saur skull - the largest of its kind in Europe. Spectacular fossils, oriental curiosities and the history of the Museum Kloster Banz (Museum Banz Monastery) are united under one roof in this museum.
The fossil or petrefact collection, as it was then called, was assembled in the first half of the 19th century and has remained largely unchanged since then. It is thus one of the oldest in Bavaria and presents a fossilised cross-section of life in the former Jurassic Sea from around 200 million years ago.
The Oriental Collection has the character of a cabinet of curiosities. Duke Maximilian in Bavaria undertook an adventurous journey to the Orient in 1838. He had the souvenirs he had collected brought to Banz Monastery. The attractions of this unique exhibition include ancient Egyptian grave goods and a mummy, as well as rock samples, ethnological objects and animals killed by the duke himself, including a 4-metre-long Nile crocodile.
Another area of the museum documents the history of the Museum Kloster Banz (Museum Banz Monastery) from the 12th century to the present day.
Last edited on 04.04.2025
