History - Fossilien- und Heimatmuseum Messel

Our history

History of Messel

Today Messel is an independent place with about 4000 inhabitants 12 km northeast of Darmstadt. A district is called Grube Messel and had developed differently historically. Messel has an elementary school and two kindergartens, a train station which is on the Darmstadt/Aschaffenburg route and a bus connection (RMV F/U-Bus), a sports hall and an industrial area in the district Grube Messel. The village is essentially oriented towards Darmstadt. In the past it lived mainly from farming, but today it has few small companies and is mainly a place to sleep for people who work in the vicinity.

From about 1860 to the 1960s there was a large industrial plant in the village, which extracted mineral oil products from the deposits of a 48 million year old lake and thus gave bread and work to up to 600 people in the area. Messel became famous for the plant and animal fossils found in the sediment of the tertiary lake, which are very well preserved and have therefore been ennobled as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

48 million years ago

Formation of a deep lake

When the hot liquid magma came into contact with groundwater, a few explosions created a lake up to 200 m deep, which existed for around 1 million years
Animals and plants fell into the lake and settled in the sediments
Due to favorable boundary conditions, the fossils were very well preserved

from 4000 years BC

Historical development of Messel

4000 years Neolithic, Bell Beaker
1800 -750 BC (tumuli and urn fields in the area)
750 BC - 0, Celtic influenced Iron Age
50 B.C. - 260 AD Roman occupation. Ceramic finds from the forest around Messel date from the time of the Roman administrative center in Dieburg.
18.01.800 in the deed of donation to the Lorsch monastery the name Masilla (for Messel) is mentioned for the first time.

From 1860

Industrial history

1860-64 Discovery of the "Messel brown coal", the pressed sediment of the lake ("oil shale")
Around 1876 the first fossil was found, an alligator, and thereafter fossils were recovered from time to time
1884 Start of mining, use of the oil shale for the production of mineral oil products (coke, tumenol, paraffin, tar, petrol, diesel, etc.)
1900-1924 Construction of new circular kilns, which yielded 95% crude oil
1924 Messel pit generates 35% of German oil production
1945 war damage
1954 The "Paraffin- und Mineralölwerk Messel GmbH" is founded.
1962 Smoldering Shutdown
excavations by amateur paleontologists and scientists in the pit begin
1971 decision to use the abandoned opencast mine of the Messel pit as a dump
1971 Founding of the citizens' initiative to prevent that waste dump in the Messel pit
1978 Founding of the Messel Museum Association (“Museumsverein Messel”)
1980 Opening of the Messel Fossil and Local History Museum
1988 Court decision to reject the plan approval decision
1991 the state of Hesse buys the pit, increased excavation activities research and visitor facility
1995 Designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
2010 Opening of a visitor information center at the edge of the pit
From 2020 excavations now under strict conditions of the Hesse Monument Protection Office, primarily by the Senckenberg Institute and the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt

Research facility

1995 Designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
2010 Opening of a visitor information center at the edge of the pit
From 2020 Excavations now carried out under strict conditions by the Hesse Office for the Protection of Monuments, primarily by the Senckenberg Institute and the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt

History of Messel

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