Prussia Ortsakten

The extensive archaeological collection of the Prussia Museum in Königsberg in East Prussia, and with it the local archives of the province, were considered completely lost after the Second World War. Only after the political changes of 1989/1990, large parts of the Königsberg archives and finds were rediscovered in Berlin. At that time, the countless documents had been badly damaged by decades of improper storage. They were conservatively treated and reorganized in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History [Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte]. Today, they are once again available to modern research as the Prussia Archive. The archaeologically most extensive part are the so-called "Ortsakten" (local files). These are collections of material related to specific sites, resulting from the reorganization of the preserved documents. They are kept in one or more juris folders for each location. The contents of such a folder are referred to as a file volume. The local files contain mostly handwritten correspondence, excavation reports, lists of finds, notes, photographs, drawings, etc. They comprise a total of 20,510 individual sheets in more than 2,100 file volumes with information on well over 2,000 find sites in 36 East Prussian districts. The oldest documents date back to 1826. The most recent are from the 1940s.