Monuments

Cultural monuments

Cultural monuments are man-made objects that have stood the test of time and represent sources and evidence of human history and development.

The burial mounds on the Klausberg, which date back to the Early to Middle Bronze Age (approx. 1000 to 100 BC), are well known. They consist of loosely stacked, unhewn stones covering a sarcophagus underneath. In 1924, Professor Liese from Aachen uncovered and examined one of these burial mounds.

Natural monuments

Individual creations of nature are designated as natural monuments, on the one hand for reasons of natural history, regional history or geological history, and on the other because of their rarity, uniqueness and beauty.

In the forest, numerous individual trees or groups of trees, including the so-called pollarded beech trees along the Aachener Landgraben, have been designated as natural monuments. Geological natural monuments exist in the form of former quarries, e.g. the historic "Münsterkull" quarry in the Klauser Wäldchen / Frankenwäldchen nature reserve, or represent geological features such as the Cyclopean stones.

Ground monuments

The Landgraben is an important ground monument in the Aachen Forest. The outer moat, also known as the Aachener Landwehr, represented the outer border of the Aachen Empire and served as a border fortification from the late Middle Ages. It consisted of a rampart with a moat on both sides. The rampart itself was planted with a dense beech hedge - almost impassable for attackers - which was regularly trimmed until around 100 years ago. Remnants of the overgrown hedge can be found today in the form of bizarre-looking pollarded trees.

The inner moat separated the Aachen Forest from the Aachen Heath. It was used to control the entry of cattle into the forest.

Parts of the Landgraben were repaired as part of the EuRegionale 2008 funding project.