History and significance

The former tithe barn was built in the late 16th century and consists entirely of reused stones from demolished monastery buildings. As the oldest post-monastic building, it therefore symbolizes the abandonment, decay and finally the gradual demolition of the monastery, which took place over two centuries. At the same time, however, the building also stands for an economy that continued to exist after the end of the monastery. Until the Bergstrasse was returned to the Electorate of Mainz, it received natural resources that had previously belonged to the monastery, but which now went to the Electoral Palatinate’s felling administration. A conductor watched over this revenue. The barn served a variety of purposes until 2003, when it was added to the assets of the State Palaces and Gardens together with the forestry office, the forest garden and the old pigsty of the forestry office and was subsequently developed into a barn of its own kind: A place to bring together the “yield” of more than 200 years of archaeological research in the form of a display depot on the first floor and a finds archive on the upper floor.