Roman Estate Sports University in Cologne

The RheinEnergieStadion in Müngersdorf—the home stadium of “1. FC Köln,” Cologne’s football club—and the German Sport University dominate the vast sports complex on both sides of Aachener Straße. This area was created in the 1920s under Mayor Konrad Adenauer as part of the “Äußere Grüngürtel,” the city’s outer green belt. Fort V of the Prussian defensive ring (1870/90), located here, was used during the Nazi era as a gathering point for Jews from Cologne and Aachen. Fort V was demolished in 1962.

In 1926, a Roman estate (villa rustica) was discovered during the expansion of sports facilities in the Jahnwiese area. The representative manor house, luxuriously decorated with wall paintings and marble, also included numerous farm buildings. The estate was built in the 1st century AD and lay 750 meters south of the Via Belgica, about five kilometers from the city walls. For more than 300 years, its owners lived well from the agricultural yields.

Today, only the large, costly sandstone sarcophagus from the 4th century AD—located by the pond called Adenauerweiher on the Jahnwiese—serves as a reminder of the Roman past of this site.