Kiesgräber
Bollendorf
Where does the name Kiesgräber come from? "War graves"? "Cheese graves", after the dialect word "Kies" for cheese, because they look like cheese boxes? The name of this burial ground from Gallo-Roman times is difficult to interpret.
Houses for the deceased In the 2nd century AD, the inhabitants of a nearby settlement laid out a burial ground at this location. They certainly chose the flat sandstone rocks with care: they chiseled angular recesses into the stone or added smoothed surfaces to accommodate the ashes of the dead and smaller vessels. Stone boxes can also be seen in the cemetery. The small graves were covered with house- or roof-shaped stones, so-called hut gravestones, or with half-roll stones. In this way, the dead were given a home like they had had in life!
Two cemeteries with very similar cremation graves can be visited near Holsthum.
