The Aachen Cathedral Treasury contains one of Europe’s most significant church treasuries, a unique collection of precious objects from the history of the Aachen Cathedral. After a redesign of the Treasury’s installation in order to sufficiently address modern conservational, technical, and safeguarding requirements, the Cathedral Treasury was opened in the winter of 1995. Today more than a 100 cultural treasures are displayed on different levels on more than 600 square meters of exhibition area.
The Cathedral Treasury features sacred cultural treasures from Late Antiquity, as well as the Carolingian, Ottonian, Hohenstaufen and Gothic eras. Its lofty position is mostly owed to the fact that for centuries – from 936 until 1531 – today’s Aachen Cathedral was the coronation church for the Roman-German kings. Some of the acquired pieces can be traced back to royal donations, others show the European importance of the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, today’s Aachen Cathedral as a pilgrimage church and as the burial church of Charlemagne.
The Cathedral also contains distinguished pieces of decoration, e.g. the Golden Antependium, Pala d´Oro (1000-1024), the Pulpit of Henry II – Ambo (ca. 1024) and the Barbarossa Chandelier (ca. 1165).