Year 200 after Christ You've never seen the city of Zurich like this before
Zurich in Roman times: the city has never been seen in such detail. A new 3D model shows life in Turicum around 200 AD and is now available online.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- With a new 3D model, the city of Zurich shows what the Roman settlement of Turicum looked like around the year 200 AD.
- The digital reconstruction is now publicly accessible in the "Zurich 4D" web application.
- It is based on over 200 archaeological sites and can be experienced online as a virtual journey through time.
How did people live in ancient Zurich? A new digital reconstruction provides an impressive answer: the 3D city model shows Roman Turicum around the year 200 AD - now publicly accessible in the "Zurich 4D" web application.
The virtual journey through time takes you back to an era in which Zurich was an important customs station on the lake. The Roman settlement of Turicum reached its greatest extent at that time. It was ideally located at the confluence of the lake, the Limmat and several long-distance trade routes.
"The location at the point where the lake and Limmat meet, as well as on several long-distance roads, is ideal for the control and collection of customs duties, the transshipment and loading of trade goods," writes the city of Zurich. Most people lived in narrow strip houses with arcades facing the street and gardens in the backyard - they planted vegetables, kept animals and grew fruit in the middle of the city.
Public buildings also shaped the cityscape: heated thermal baths, a circular temple on the Limmat and another temple on the former "Grosser Hafner" island. The tombs were located outside the settlement, on the road to the south. Roman estates in the surrounding area provided supplies - around a dozen such villae rusticae have been found in the present-day city area.
3D view requires computing power
If you want to explore the digital model, you need a little patience: calculating the 3D view is time-consuming. Depending on the performance of the computer, the display can be jerky.
The basis for the reconstruction is a comprehensive scientific study by Annina Wyss Schildknecht from 2020, which analyzed over 200 sites. "We also included contributions from international researchers for the surrounding area as well as for agriculture and forest use," says Stephan Wyss, Head of City Archaeology Zurich. Recent excavations have also been incorporated.
The model of Turicum is part of a total of six planned time periods with which the city of Zurich is documenting its architectural history in "Zurich 4D". In addition to the Roman period, reconstructions of the Neolithic period and the years 1500 and 1800 are already available. Two further eras are to follow by the end of 2026.