Author: Maarten Koning

The Verena Church in Bad Zurzach

There are twelve-panel paintings depicting the legend of the holy Verena (about 250 AD – 4th century) in the Verena church (Verenamünster) in Bad Zurzach. The paintings  by Kaspar Letter (1608-1663) date from the 17th century. Verena is the patron saint of the poor, millers, fishermen and sailors.

She was born in the Egyptian city of Thebes. She joined the Theban legion and moved north with the soldiers. Mauritius was the commander of this legion and her fiancée.

The Legion became the victim of the persecution of Christians in Wallis. The abbey of St. Mauritius, founded in 516, is dedicated to this event.

Verena buried the martyrs and lived in a cave near the town of Solothurn (Salodurum in Latin). She moved to Bad Zurzach  (Tenedo in Latin) soon afterwards.

She took care of the poor and the sick. She was later canonized. Her attributes are comb and jug.

(Source and further information: St. Verena Stiftung Bad Zurzach, www.st-verena.ch).

Two Ivory Dolls and Romanisation

Underneath a Roman necropolis with 311 graves in Yverdon-Les-Bains (Eburodunum in Roman times), excavations revealed numerous remains, such as earthen and wooden buildings from the beginning of our era and the masonry foundations of a later cellar.

Two tiny ivory dolls were also found. They are related to the first models that appeared in Rome. The hairstyle imitates the models in vogue at the imperial court in Rome. In the absence of a precise archaeological context, this is a good dating criterion. The best comparisons come from early fourth-century hairstyles used by women of the Constantinian family during 306-330 AD.

While these figurines were relatively common in the 4th century in Spain, southern France and Italy, few examples from Switzerland and Roman-Germany are known.

The two dolls from Yverdon-Les-Bains, attested between the 4th and 6th centuries, reveal a high technical and artistic quality that has, until now, hardly found an equivalent north of the Alps.

The discovery of such pieces remains an exceptional phenomenon that can be explained by the presence of a fully romanised Gallo-Roman wealthy family.
(F. Rossi, “Deux poupées en ivoire d’époque romaine à Yverdon-les-Bains” in Archéologie suisse, 1993, No 4).

Laufen Castle

The Rhine waterfall  (Rheinfall) at Schaffhausen, or rather Neuhausen, was at the time called “Grosses Lauffen”. The castle (Schloss Laufen) still bears this name. The first mention was in 858.

The castle was the ancestral seat of the Lords of Laufen, but over the centuries it had many owners, including the Bishop of Constance, the All Saints’ Convent in Schaffhausen and the Count of Kyburg.

Another owner, Hans Wilhelm von Fulach, sold the castle to the town of Zurich in 1544.

The castle belongs to the canton of Zurich and is a modern tourist destination nowadays.

(Source and further information: www.schlosslaufen.ch).