Trier / Igel • In the courtyard of the archaeological Rhineland Museum in the oldest city of Germany, Trier (Rheinisches Landesmuseums Trier), now there can be no question of museum silence – the rumble of jackhammers is heard, the largest local exhibit is being dismantled: a 23-meter and 300-ton copy of an ancient Roman tomb monument, the original of which has been preserved and is located in the nearby village of Igel on the Moselle.
The monument in Igel was erected around 250 AD by order of two Roman brothers from the Secundini family, who traded fabrics in these places. In the dictionary of antiquity, it is described as a four-tiered tower with a pyramidal top. The bas-reliefs decorating the monument depict typical scenes from the life of merchants and various mythological subjects. The tower is crowned with a stone eagle (lat. “aquila”), in fact, from which, as it is believed, the name of this settlement came – Igel, consonant with the English “Eagle”, although in German it still reminds of hedgehogs.
“Roman monument at Igel”. Edward Rooker (1712 – 1774)
Tombstone in the village of Igel is one of only two (!) such ancient Roman monuments north of the Alps, preserved in their original places. Another is located on the Rhine in Mainz – a monument to the Roman commander Drusus the Elder (Drususstein). In both cases, we are talking, according to historians, about the so-called cenotaphs, that is, symbolic graves. During the archaeological excavations, the remains were not found here.
Constantine the Great, Trier and Christianity
In 1986, along with other ancient Roman sights of Trier and its environs, the main of which is the “Black Gate” – Porta Nigra, the Igel Column (Igeler Säule) was included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. It is assumed that in the Middle Ages, that is, after the Romans left these places, it was not destroyed, since the scene on one of the bas-reliefs, as it was then mistakenly believed, could depict the wedding of the parents of Emperor Constantine the Great – Constantius I Chlorus and Helena Equal-to-the-Apostles.
It was Constantine the Great (272 – 337) who made Christianity the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, so for many centuries the column in Igel was considered not as a pagan monument, but as a monument of early Christian history. This ruler also proclaimed Trier the capital of the united Roman Empire – a kind of “Northern Rome”. It was in this city that he announced his decision to adopt Christianity as the official faith. True, if we follow modern estimates of the age of the monument, the wedding of the parents of Emperor Constantine the Great took place after the erection of the monument in Igel, but the legend, obviously, still played a role in the fact that the column has survived to this day.
Igelskaya column – original and copy. Photos
The village of Igel is located on the Moselle River about ten kilometers from Trier
Relief depicting a wagon loaded with fabrics on a column in Igel
Cart with fabrics on a copy of the monument in Trier and a reconstructed colored bas-relief
Copy of the Igel Column in the courtyard of the Rhineland Museum in Trier
A copy of the column before the dismantling of the bas-reliefs
Fragments of the bas-relief that will be used to create a new copy of the monument
Almost two thousand years (without two centuries), of course, did not pass without a trace for this monument. The sandstone from which it is made, although not a very hard material, still stood the test of time well, but the colorful painting was almost completely lost. However, the remaining fragments were still enough to try to reconstruct the original appearance in our time. A copy of the Igel Column for the museum in Trier was made in 1906-1908. The murals were reconstructed later.
A copy of a copy for 450 thousand euros
Unlike the original, the 1:1 scale copy was not as durable. A few years ago, it was in such a bad condition that the museum workers had to close the access of visitors to this exhibit and enclose it with scaffolding. After that, it was decided to make a copy … a copy, using some fragments of the bas-reliefs. Before the start of dismantling and demolition, the column was scanned using modern methods, creating a three-dimensional digital image. This data will be used to create a new exhibit – from more durable materials. According to the dpa news agency, they plan to spend about 450,000 euros on the project.
Museum director Marcus Reuter shows reporters a bottle with a message from the creators of the copy of the monument, discovered during the dismantling of the column
The original, as it stood, stands in its place, continuing to play the usual role of the main ancient Roman village attraction. In 2015, a complete restoration of the tower was completed, so it awaits visitors to the region in all its 1800-year-old glory.
One of the first famous tourists who left notes about this monument in their travel notes was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Having visited here twice in 1792, he especially noted the very successful choice of a place for the monument – in the middle of a pacifying Moselle landscape. A couple of decades later, a local foundry began to produce 50 cm Igel columns made of cast iron. One of the first such weighty souvenirs was, of course, delivered to the German “Prince of Poets”.
Images and descriptions of the column are, of course, also found in earlier documents – for example, the notes of a noble resident from Bologna, who accompanied the apostolic nuncio to Trier in the 16th century. In the same century, the monument was almost dismantled in order to be transported to the residence of the stadtholder of the Spanish Netherlands and the governor of Luxembourg, Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld. After several unsuccessful attempts to start dismantling the tower, these plans were nevertheless abandoned, however, the traces in the lower part of the monument, as experts suggest, remained and still remind of this, at the same time demonstrating the very good quality of the work of ancient Roman masters.
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