A new chapter in German history?

The room that researchers believe was used as a library was 65 feet long and 30 feet wide, with a 30-foot high ceiling, according to estimates.

But what really captured the researchers’ attention were the roughly 30-inch deep wall recesses, which bore striking similarities with the setup of other rooms that were used as libraries during the Roman era.

Roman libraries have mostly been found in Egypt or Italy and the Cologne find may be the first such discovery in the Roman Empire’s northwestern regions, which at its peak spanned France, Britain and western Germany.

Across the empire, Roman emperors left their footprint by introducing currencies, occupying territories and constructing buildings that reflected a culture that prospered for centuries — though it was built on the exploitation and oppression of other peoples. And while the walls discovered in central Cologne may once have accommodated a library, the use of the word “public” still remains controversial.

Researchers have since raised doubts over how public those libraries were, with the University of Georgia’s T. Keith Dix writing in 1994 that anecdotes from that time indicate that access remained mostly restricted to “authors close to imperial circles who might naturally be expected to have won access to libraries under imperial control.” The Roman Empire’s official libraries also appear to have been used “for censorship of literature,” according to Dix.