Montauban Hill

The Montauban hill has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, about 2000 years before our era. People from the Iron Age also settled there, surrounding the rocky ridge with a defensive wall, parts of which are still remarkably well preserved.
In the fourth century, the Romans transformed the site into a fortification against invading Germans. Among other things, they built the large central defensive wall, made up of 40 large blocks of worked stone. Some stones still show beautiful carvings: they come from the large burial monuments along the Roman road that passed through Étalle.
The most interesting sculpture is undeniably the famous reaping machine from the Trevians. It was the first time that archaeologists found a bas-relief depicting what was likely the first agricultural machine invented by humans; it was already described in the first century by Pliny the Elder.
The carved stones in the defensive wall are merely replicas. The originals are preserved on-site in a small underground museum, alongside a reconstructed reaping machine (although it is not entirely clear how it could have worked).
Furthermore, you can still see the remains of a late medieval castle tower that, according to legend, was owned by the Four Heemskinderen. Not far from that keep, a remarkable spring emerges from the hillside: a cranière, which is so rich in calcium that the water effectively encloses moss in lime. However, we suspect that visitors immediately take away every piece of calcified nature, which is a shame.

Lannoo