The Roman Palace beneath St. Pölten’s cathedral square

From an archaeological perspective, the cathedral square in St. Pölten is one of the best investigated and thus most interesting squares in Lower Austria. The finds date from Roman times to the modern era.
After St. Pölten became the capital of Lower Austria in 1986, there was a significant increase in archaeological digs in the city – partly due to the greater amount of construction activity. The importance of this research to the city is also underlined by the appointment of St. Pölten’s own city archaeologist, Dr Ronald Risy, in 2010. Dr Risy led the excavations in the cathedral square from 2010 to 2019, which uncovered finds such as some 20,000 human skeletons from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. These form the world’s most comprehensive database for research on humans and the environment from the Middle Ages to modern times.

A palace from Roman times
The finds from the cathedral square go much further back into the past, however. The area where the historic centre of St. Pölten now stands was once the site of the Roman settlement of Aelium Cetium, probably one of the least known Roman towns in Lower Austria. During the large-scale excavations in the cathedral square, archaeologists were for the first time able to document large interconnected building complexes.

The excavation site is near to the Roman forum, which is likely to be located under the Herrenplatz. One particularly remarkable discovery is an extensive multipart building from the early fourth century AD, which had a unique bathhouse as well as an administrative and residential wing. The complex was extended around 350 AD to include a stately hall with an apse and additional rooms with underfloor heating. Halls with an apse were designed to be prestigious and are usually found in Late Antique governors’ palaces or imperial residences. Like so many grand Roman buildings, this palace was used as a kind of quarry in post-Roman times: the complex was converted into a church in the ninth century, and subsequent buildings also used Roman building structures.

A capital in ancient times too?
The discovery of the Roman governor’s palace may indicate that Aelium Cetium could have been the seat of the governor (praeses) of the province of Noricum Ripense, for which archaeologists had been searching for a long time. In any event, the finds show that Aelium Cetium was of much greater importance in Late Antiquity than has been generally assumed to date.

Tip: numerous finds from the excavations in the cathedral square are on display at the St. Pölten City Museum.