It is a wonder that it has been preserved in the same location for about 1,800 years: the Igel Column tells stories from the life of a rich family of cloth merchants from Trier and is now designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The column burial monument rises 23 metres into the air, standing on an old Roman road and probably marked the family’s tomb garden. The monument has been dated to about 220 AD and was once brightly painted.
On the side facing the road, you can see a farewell scene: a boy reaches his hand out to his father. Other relief images depict everyday scenes of commercial life: cloth being examined, monetary transactions taking place, bales being tied together and goods being transported by land and water. The Secundinier family obviously traded far and wide and it has been proven that the cloth from the region was exported as far as Rome. The cloth goods were not traded as luxury goods there but rather were appreciated as warm, rainproof outerwear. No wonder the Secundiniers became so prosperous.
If you travel on in the direction of Luxembourg, you can also see a burial temple nearby.

A station on the Roman roads.