brief Description of Solnhofen and Museum

sometimes grew to a wing span of more than
150 cm, of which there are a number of well
preserved examples.
Turtles: A fossilized turtle, the Eurysterum wagleri, is an extremely rare and well preserved
find, which the collector praised from the stone
in one night.
Prehistoric birds: The Archaeopteryx lithographica and the Archaeopteryx bavarica are both
to be seen in plaster casts. The first find (lithographic)
was
made in 1861 in
Haardt
near
Solnhofen, 20 m
u n d e r gr o u n d .
The
country
doctor Haeberlein
acquired
this
valuable
find and sold it
to the British
Museum in London. The second find of
1877 (ab simensi)
came
from a quarry
on the Blumenberg near Eichstätt and was sold
at that time for 20.000 gold marks, offered by
Werner von Siemens on behalf of the Humboldt
University of Berlin. Werner von Siemens sponsored this acquisition in order to preserve this
valuable find for German science. The prehistory bird was the first find of a fossilized bird
which retains many characteristics of reptiles.
The most important of these are: teeth, claws
on the flying joints, and a spine which extends
into the tail.
Solnhofen's quarries and the town's history
Sea crocodile Geosaurus: In the year 2008
there was found a spectacular fossil in the area of
the town Painten.
This exceptional crocodile, which is exposed in
the Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum since the 20th
of June 2008, could be the most perfect and most
beautiful crocodile of Solnhofen from the Jurassic time, 150 Million years ago. Dr. Martin Röper
points out the inimitable conservation of the complete „Geosaurus”. He denotes the sea crocodile
as the “main important fossil of the museum after
finding the Archaeopteryx“.
Opening hours of the Museum:
01.04. - 31.10.
01.11. - 31.03.
Daily
9 am - 5 pm
Sunday 1 pm - 4 pm
Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum
Bahnhofstraße 8
91807 Solnhofen
Phone: + 49 9145/832020, 832030
Fax:
+ 49 9145/832050
Email: [email protected]
Solnhofen is known all over the world for its
Jurassic limestone slabs and its fossils. It is one
of the most southerly towns in the rural district of
Weißenburg Gunzenhausen and is lying on both
sides of the Altmühl River. The town of Solnhofen
was founded by an Anglo Saxon monk named
SOLA, who was sent to the Altmühl area in 750
A.D. from the monastery of Fulda. He was to convert the pagan Germanic tribes to Christianity. As
he started his missionary work there, he lived in
a rock cave, the so called “Sola cave”. We can still
see remnants of this on the edge of the hill high
above Solnhofen (Käppleinsberg). Sola founded a
farm on the right side of the Altmühl: The name
of the town came from the word "Solahuf". Charlemagne gave Sola the Iand around his farm as a
reward for his help during the construction of the
"Fossa Carolina" The monk died in 794 A.D., bequeathing his property to the monastery at Fulda.
The monks there built him a tomb and later (825
A.D.) a basilica was erected over the spot. Later
again they added a church and monastery. The
basilica, one of the oldest architectural masterpieces in Germany, with its Carolingian columns
has been preserved until now.
In Solnhofen there is also a memorial to the inventor of lithography, Alois Senefelder, who was
responsible for the development of the Solnhofen
quarries.
water kept flowing back, leaving lime sediments
within the land basin.
The Solnhofen limestone slabs probably owe their
unique quality to the dry period between the
floods. For if the lagoons had constantly been exposed to the sea, the limestone sediments would
no doubt have formed massive blocks offstage.
When the sea flooded the land, sea animals and
plants were carried into the lagoons. They remained embedded in the mud when the water flowed,
back. Further flood brought in more lime mud and
this developed layer upon layer. Embedded between or in the layers themselves are not only
each plants and animals, but also mainland ones,
and even insects
and other flying
animals. In the
course of millions
of years, the mud
hardened and petrified. These petrified remnants of
the past reveal to
us, the history of
our planet and its
Die Welt
creatures as they
were 150 million
in Stein
years ago.
Geological History in Solnhofen
Jurassic limestone slabs are found between
Langenaltheim and Kehlheim, an area with 100
km length and 30 km width. The main reserves lie
near Solnhofen, Mörnsheim and in the Eichstätt
area. According to scientific research, the deposits were probably formed in the following way.
During the Mesozoic Age (about 110 160 million
years ago), the region of Southern Germany and
most of Central Europe was covered by sea.
Lagoons are supposed to have formed coral reefs
by the coastal areas of this sea. Limestone mud
was carried down onto these reefs by the sea currents and deposited there. Even more likely however, is another theory, that vast areas of flat land
were covered by periodical floods, and that the
ho
oln fe
n
S
The quarry industry in Solnhofen
People have been working in the quarries for
many years now, winter in and summer out, often
under shelters against rain, sun or snow. The
stone slabs are split by means of picks and
chisels, even small hoes. Each of the slabs is
marked with coal into its rectangular or square
shapes and then hacked out with a hammer. Prepared slabs used to be loaded onto small carriages and were rolled into the work areas. Nowadays fork lifts and trucks are performing this
transport work. In the plants there will be found
modern machines and skilled personal cut and
round the edges of the slabs, which are often
polished. Lorries now transport them everywhere,
a job the railways performed earlier.
Bürgermeister Müller Museum in Solnhofen
More than 40 years ago the present Mayor of
Solnhofen, Friedrich Müller, began to collect, to
prepare and to classify fossils found in the limestone slabs of Solnhofen and its surroundings.
Over the years a collection was built up, which
bears witness to an epoch long since past. It includes almost all kinds of fossils found in the Solnhofen quarries. In the museum we can find Cephalopoda, spinous animals, nsects, fish, plants,
jeIly fish, medusa, crabs, turtles and reptiles.
A geological cross-section is also represented,
which shows a variety of geological formations as
well as the evolution of life from the Cambrian
age, about 560 million years ago, via the Silur,
Devon, Carbon, Perm, Trias, Jurassic, Chalk and
Tertiary formations.
Cephalopoda: It is worth mentioning a large
ten armed octopus, 1 m long and with a tremendous body that thins out towards the back
and ends in two fins (Leptoteuthis gigas) The
ink pouch is often well-preserved, and even the
dry and petrified ink matter is sometimes still in
quite good condition.
An ammonite, embedded in a vertical position
with marvelous limestone minerals is a special
feature ' of this group.
Spinous animals: Outstanding in this group
are Orphiurella speciosa and sea lilies, such as
Pterocoma pinnata.
Insects: We would like to mention grasshoppers, wasps, beetles, and water-bugs, especially the dragon fly with a wing span of 21 cm.
Fish: There is a large collection of rare and
beautiful fish such as a well preserved scale fish
112 cm long, a cartilage fish, (Caturus maximus
150 cm long and 55 cm high, a titan fish, (Gyrodus circularis) 95 cm long and 70 cm high.
The rounded teeth are almost complete. There
is also an Orthocormus cornutus 145 cm long
which has definite shark characteristics e.g.
uneven fins on the tail and typical shark teeth.
We can also see an Crossopterigian Holophagus 25 cm long an intermediary form between
sea and land animals. It was declared extinct but
it was rediscovered near Madagascar in 1938
and again in 1952. It is therefore called a living
fossil.
Crabs: We should mention the Aeger tipularius,
a crab with six long feelers and ten legs, and
Mesolimulas walchi (arrow tail crab), even a
trace of its movement in stone.
Saurians: This is the most valuable and rarest
group and excellent examples of it can be found
in the museum, e.g. the Homoeosaurus sp. a
small lizard; Pleurosaurus goldfussi; this is a
saurian 90 cm long and very rare.
The Pterosaur Pterodactylus antiquus and Pterodactylus kochi these get their names from
the two flying fingers, which can be considered
as extensions of the claw and which used to be
covered by a webbed skin and finally the
Pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus gemmingi (beak
muzzled) which