With chopper and shovel

Already from the late 19th century on, the first “archaeological” excavations in Raeren were made. Stoneware from the Renaissance was very famous in those days and was deeply desired by collectors. The Raeren curate J. Schmitz carried through the first excavations, together with the Aachen industrial and art collector Laurenz Adalbert Hetjens. They found among other things the workshop of Ian Emens Mennicken in the quarter of the Pfau. Many of the excavated show pieces ended up in the hands of collectors and can nowadays be seen in museums of arts and crafts.

One of the first writers about Raeren stoneware, the Englishman M.L. Solon, introduces the Raeren stoneware in his book "The ancient art stoneware of the low countries and Germany", Vol. I, London 1892, with chopper and shovel. He was present during the first excavations.

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With bucket and wheelbarrow

In the years after the war more construction work took place in the village and consequently ditches with shreds and remains of potter's kilns were found
repeatedly due to excavation. Dr. Michel Kohnemann and Dr. Otto Eugen Mayer analysed these numerous finds and thereof established the basis of the collection of the Raeren pottery museum. Sometimes the layers of shred were many metres thick. In this time especially the simple kitchenware of practical use was found and analysed. Till then that was mostly unknown. Most museum collections only possess the richly decorated ceramics from the Renaissance.

Metre thick packages of shreds characterise the Raeren excavations

Dr O.E. Mayer at an excavation in the Fifties

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With brush and ladle

Still today there are rapacious excavations in Raeren. The rapacious excavators don't only steal the historico-cultural property of the Raeren people.
They also destroy all connections between the finds from which the archaeologists could draw important conclusions and win new insights. Today the archaeologists work with brush and ladle and make use of the
most modern scientific research methods.

Results of a rapacious excavation discovered in 1999

Archaeologists proceed with care and scientific methods so that no discoveries might get lost