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Hidden gem1st – 4th c. ADUnknown

Roman villa of Munzach

Montiacum, Villa rustica (Munzach)

villa · Liestal District, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland

What it is
Munzach is a Roman country estate about 1.2 km north-west of Liestal (Pleiades), about an hour's walk from Augusta Raurica in Roman times, and one of the largest Roman villas in Switzerland; its central buildings survive as conserved walls in a meadow.
What you’ll see
The estate measured about 160 by 320 m. Its main house was long, with at least ten rooms and a portico on the east, and was richly fitted with mosaics; a bath wing with its own portico, halls and working buildings were added at an angle to the east (HLS).
Worth the trip?
Only if you are visiting Augusta Raurica or Liestal and want to see the countryside that fed the Roman town: the remains are walls at ground level, there is no museum on the spot, and no source publishes visiting arrangements.
Getting there & cost
The bus stop Munzach is mapped about 170 m from the ruins and a car park about 110 m (OpenStreetMap). No source publishes opening times or a charge.Unknown · No charge is published or mappedHours, tickets and parking
Low conserved stone walls of a villa in a meadow, with a long strip of floor patterned in a white grid with circles running along one side towards a higher wall carrying a sign, and flowering trees behind.
The conserved walls of the villa and a patterned floor along its portico. · Photo: Umschattiger · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

What is there today

The estate measured about 160 by 320 m. Its main house was long, with at least ten rooms and a portico on the east, and was richly fitted with mosaics; a bath wing with its own portico, halls and working buildings were added at an angle to the east (HLS). The most important of the central buildings are preserved (HLS). A photograph from 2007 shows low conserved walls in a meadow and a long strip of patterned floor along one side (Wikimedia Commons).

Is it worth the trip?

Only if you are visiting Augusta Raurica or Liestal and want to see the countryside that fed the Roman town: the remains are walls at ground level, there is no museum on the spot, and no source publishes visiting arrangements. For most visitors Augusta Raurica is the better use of the day.

Getting there

The bus stop Munzach is mapped about 170 m from the ruins and a car park about 110 m (OpenStreetMap). No source publishes opening times or a charge.

Visiting details

Opening hours
No source publishes visiting hours; the remains are outdoors.
Tickets
No charge is published or mapped.
Parking
A car park about 110 m away (OpenStreetMap, way/256508109).

History

The villa stood where the Bienental and the Röserntal meet, at the edge of the Ergolz valley, an hour’s walk south of Augusta Raurica; it existed from the first half of the 1st century to the 4th century, and was almost entirely excavated by 1974 (HLS). Pleiades dates it from the middle of the 1st century and records that it was sacked around 259. In Roman times it was called Montiacum (de.wikipedia). The national inventory lists the estate together with a medieval settlement and its church of St. Laurentius (KGS 1464).

Nearby

  • A semicircle of stone seating rising in tiers above a level orchestra floor, framed by rough masonry walls, with trees on the slope above.

    Photo: Guido Radig · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons

    5 km · city · Liestal District, Basel-Landschaft

    Augusta Raurica

    The operator lists the open-air site, its protected monuments and an animal park as free, and the open-air site as open around the clock; fr.wikipedia puts the open-air sights at more than twenty.

  • A square of low, neatly conserved stone walls on a gravel floor at the edge of a wood, with a lawn and a path in front.

    Photo: PantaRhei · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons

    17 km · fort · Rheinfelden District, Aargau

    Burgus of Wallbach-Stelli

    Of the three Roman watchtowers known at Wallbach, only the burgus at Stelli has been fully excavated, conserved and partly reconstructed (de.wikipedia).

  • A large mosaic floor of black and white geometric patterns, stars and rosettes filling a bright room with arched windows, a railing along one side and a framed building plan on the wall.

    Photo: Minnou · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons

    29 km · villa · Zofingen District, Aargau

    Roman villa of Zofingen

    Three well-preserved mosaic floors, with chequerboard, lozenge and trapezoid patterns and floral motifs, are kept visible in two matching classical shelters (Canton of Aargau Denkmalpflege).

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 177561CC BY
Wikidata Q17041699CC0
OpenStreetMap node/2097796902ODbL
Wikipedia (de) — Villa Rustica (Munzach)CC BY-SA 4.0
Wikipedia (fr) — Villa romaine de MunzachCC BY-SA 4.0
Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Munzach (Jürg Tauber)licence not recorded
KGS inventory 1464 — Munzach, römischer Gutshof (BABS)licence not recorded