The museum also has the task of preserving the Roman cultural heritage of Cologne, and therefore houses an extensive collection of Roman glass from funerals and burials and also exercises archaeological supervision over the construction of the Cologne underground.

In the front of the museum the former northern town gate of Cologne with the inscription CCAA (for Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) is on display in the building.

Many artefacts of everyday life in Roman Cologne, ivory and bone objects, bronzes — including portraits of Roman emperor Augustus and his wife Livia Drusilla —, coins, wall paintings, inscriptions, pottery and architectural fragments round out the displays.

The collection, which also includes Franconian glass, continues to grow through excavation finds from the Roman necropolises.

[3] On the night of 18 January 2007, Cyclone Kyrill blew a sheet of plywood through the glass front of the museum right onto the Dionysus mosaic.