mosaic (220-230 AD) in the Römisch-Germanisches Museum CologneThe Römisch-Germanisches Museum, which opened in 1974, is near
Cologne Cathedral, on the site of a 3rd-century villa. The villa was discovered in 1941 during the construction of an air-raid shelter. On the floor of the main room of the villa is the renowned Dionysus mosaic. Since the mosaic could not be moved easily, the architects Klaus Renner and Heinz Röcke designed the museum around the mosaic. The inner courtyards of the museum mimic the layout of the ancient villa. In addition to the Dionysus mosaic, which dates from around A.D. 220/230, there is the reconstructed
sepulchre of the
legionary Poblicius (about A.D. 40). There is also an extensive collection of Roman glassware as well as an array of Roman and medieval jewellery. Many artefacts of everyday life in Roman Cologne, ivory and bone objects, bronzes — including portraits of Roman emperor
Augustus and his wife
Livia Drusilla —, coins, wall paintings, inscriptions, pottery and architectural fragments round out the displays. The museum has the world's largest collection of
Roman glass vessels from the 1st to 4th centuries, with more than 4,000 complete collection pieces, including a large number of luxury glasses such as figure vessels, snake thread glasses, cut glasses and tricolor diatretes, for example the famous Cologne
cage cup from the 4th century, a top piece known among experts. Typical are glass drinking vessels that are decorated with attached glass drops of a different color, the so-called
Cologne nubs. The collection, which also includes
Franconian glass, continues to grow through excavation finds from the Roman necropolises. On the night of 18 January 2007,
Cyclone Kyrill blew a sheet of plywood through the glass front of the museum right onto the Dionysus mosaic. The damage was repaired within a week. == See also==