DOI: 10.17026/dans-x8q-tf7m
title: The roman villa at Maasbracht
title: Analecta Praeistorica Leidensia 46

description: &lt;p&gt;In the Dutch archaeological community, the Villa of&lt;br&gt;Maasbracht has become famous for the beautiful remains of&lt;br&gt;murals that have survived to this day. Almost all of this&lt;br&gt;material was found in the infill of the stone cellar, a veritable&lt;br&gt;time capsule that has been excavated with much patience&lt;br&gt;and care. Unequivocal credit for this goes to an enthusiastic&lt;br&gt;group of amateur archaeologists of the Heemkundevereniging&lt;br&gt;Roerstreek (HVR), amongst whom Ton Lupak and&lt;br&gt;Jo Kempkens. This was also the informal beginning of their&lt;br&gt;company Restaura, a specialist enterprise in restoration and&lt;br&gt;conservation techniques in Haelen, near Roermond.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The immediate reason for the investigation of the villa of&lt;br&gt;Maasbracht at that time was the development of a housing&lt;br&gt;project. It was located at the spot where since the 1960s&lt;br&gt;a Roman stone building was suspected. The first field&lt;br&gt;campaign in 1981 consisted of some four narrow trial&lt;br&gt;trenches excavated by members of the HVR (Willems 1982;&lt;br&gt;Van Dierendonck et al. 1987; Willems and Kooistra 1988).&lt;br&gt;These yielded amongst others foundation trenches of walls&lt;br&gt;and floors of mortar and rubble from the Roman period.&lt;br&gt;Evidently, traces of the preceding Iron Age as well as the&lt;br&gt;Early Middles Ages were also found. This was in 1982 cause&lt;br&gt;for the State Service for Archaeological Research (Rijksdienst&lt;br&gt;voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek (ROB)) to begin&lt;br&gt;another investigation and to investigate an extensive area in&lt;br&gt;25 working pits. The most important result was the find of&lt;br&gt;a stone main building of a Roman villa complex. In 1990 an&lt;br&gt;additional campaign was undertaken by the ROB whereby&lt;br&gt;three working pits were documented (Stoepker 1991).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the excavations, the villa has been left on a shelf in&lt;br&gt;the front as one of the investigations of interest from Roman&lt;br&gt;times with the prospect of one day being further analysed.&lt;br&gt;When the opportunity at last presented itself, due to the&lt;br&gt;Limburgs Museum in Venlo making the financial resources&lt;br&gt;available, the University of Leiden in co-operation with the&lt;br&gt;excavation company Archol bv set to work very energetically.&lt;br&gt;Several other archaeologists were contracted in to make a&lt;br&gt;success of the analysis of the villa.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Table of contents&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Preface&lt;br&gt;M.J. Versluys&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. Introduction&lt;br&gt;W.K. Vos and W.J.H. Willems&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. Settlement traces and structures&lt;br&gt;W.K. Vos&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. Pottery&lt;br&gt;E. van den Brink&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4. The building material&lt;br&gt;A.E. Gazenbeek&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;5. The wall painting fragments&lt;br&gt;L.J.F. Swinkels&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;6. Animal remains and bone artefacts&lt;br&gt;E. Esser, F.L. Laarman and M.J. Rijkelijkhuizen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;7. Glass and jet&lt;br&gt;S.M.E. van Lith and M.J. Driessen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;8. The metalwork&lt;br&gt;M.J. Driessen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;9. Synthesis&lt;br&gt;W.K. Vos and W.J.H. Willems&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;References&lt;/p&gt;
description: &lt;p&gt;In memory of Willem J.H. Willems&lt;/p&gt;
description: &lt;p&gt;The archaeology and history of a Roman settlement on the banks of the river Meuse (province of Limburg, The Netherlands)&lt;/p&gt;
description: &lt;p&gt;Analecta Praeistorica Leidensia 46&lt;/p&gt;
description: Date: 1982 (opgraving ROB)