Heunensäule
Heunensäule stands in Mainz’s market square as a sandstone column surrounded by Gernot Rumpf’s bronze sculpture. The market-square setting provides wheelchair access to the spot. The column rises 6.4 metres, measures 1.2 metres across, and weighs 16 tonnes.
Craftsmen carved it in the eleventh century from sandstone quarried in the Bullauer Mountains near Miltenberg. Its intended place was the rebuilding of Mainz Cathedral after a fire in 1009. Different supports left these columns unused, until Miltenberg gave this one to Mainz in 1975.
Bronze reliefs connect Roman Mainz, the bishopric, French rule, royal visits, and the city’s wheel. A fox emerges from a gladiator mask beside three mice hidden inside it. A Jacobin cap recalls the Mainz Republic and contains a movable piece that clatters loudly. Two reliefs also confront persecution of the Jewish community and Mainz after the bombings of 1942 and 1945.
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- Mainz
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The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Mainz. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.