Archeological park Magdalensberg, Archaeological site and museum on Magdalensberg mountain, Austria
The Archaeological Park Magdalensberg is an open-air excavation site with an on-site museum set on a hillside in Carinthia, Austria. The grounds expose the remains of houses, workshops, and public structures from both Celtic and Roman periods, arranged across the slope so visitors can move between them on foot.
Magdalensberg was the capital of a Celtic kingdom called Noricum before Roman merchants arrived in the second half of the 1st century BC and established trading posts on the same site. Planned excavations started in the 1940s and gradually revealed a full urban layout beneath the hillside.
The name Magdalensberg comes from a small chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene that still stands on the summit and can be visited. Walking through the excavation areas, you can clearly see how Celtic and Roman building styles sat side by side, giving the place a layered quality that is easy to read even without a guide.
The site sits on a hillside and is explored on foot along marked paths that connect the different excavation areas. Sturdy shoes are a good idea since the ground is uneven and can get slippery after rain.
A bronze statue of a youth found here in 1502 is one of the earliest known bronze finds from the modern era in Europe and now sits in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. What many visitors do not know is that the figure on display at the site today is a copy made to replace the original after it was moved.
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