The Big Jupiter column, Roman monument in Mainz, Germany.
The Jupiter Column is an ancient Roman monument in Mainz that originally stood about 9 meters tall and featured 28 relief carvings of different deities across its surface. The carefully carved scenes on the stone held religious and political meaning for the settlement of Mogontiacum at that time.
The monument was created during Emperor Nero's reign between 54 and 68 AD by sculptors Samus and Severus in Mogontiacum. The column shows how the Romans established their power and religious beliefs in this conquered region.
The carvings show Roman and Germanic gods side by side, reflecting how the local people blended their own beliefs with Roman traditions. You can see this mixing of two worlds in the reliefs that have survived thousands of years.
The original pieces are on display at the Landesmuseum Mainz, while a replica has been placed near the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. Both locations are in Mainz and easy to reach if you want to explore Roman history.
The monument was discovered in more than 2000 fragments that were pieced together from excavations between 1904 and 1905. This extreme fragmentation makes the puzzle of reconstruction quite remarkable, as archaeologists had to reassemble the pieces like a complex stone mosaic.
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