Today’s Monday Mysteries post answers the question: “Why is there a small set of steps to nowhere at an opening in a hedge next to the Ammer River?”

The Ammer river in Tübingen runs along the edge of the old city center, and at one point there’s a large hedge that runs along the river bank, separating the river from a large park. There’s an unusual gap in the hedge, though, and leading into that gap from the river-side of the hedge is a set of long-abandoned steps that seem to go nowhere.

As it turns out, that opening in the hedge marks the site of the entrance to the old Tübingen Friedhof, “cemetery”. Those steps originally would have taken you through the Schwarzes Tor,  “black gate”, into the cemetery. Although there’s no trace of a bridge there now, at one time this was the spot where a wooden pedestrian bridge connected the city center with the cemetery, and I’m assuming the steps were connected to the end of that bridge.

The cemetery was moved years ago up the hill in the background; I’ve previously posted some photos I took there last year, actually. Anyway, all that remains of the old cemetery nowadays is this opening in the hedge, and those steps that seem out-of-place that originally would have led to the entrance gate.

The Ammer River was historically the boundary between the residential part of the city. As I mentioned,  there was a wood bridge which allow people to cross from the city over the river into the cemetery. While there are modern pedestrian bridges, the original wooden bridge that would have been in this spot is long since gone.  In 1829, the city decided to move the cemetery, and in 1836 they sold the land to the University, who used it to expanded its neighboring botanical garden to encompass the entire space. That area is now referred to as the Alte Botanischer Garten, the “old Botanical Garden”, as it is no longer a botanical garden at all. The university opened its new botanical garden in 1969.

Interesting, just like the cemetery, the garden was also moved up the hill and away from the city center – in fact, it’s further away than the cemetery, which is far easier these days to visit than the gardens. Go figure.

BTW, a question you might have is what happened to the “residents” of the old cemetery when they moved it to its new location? I know I wondered about that. I mean, when you move a cemetery, do you dig up all the coffins and move them, too? Well, one possible answer to what happened here in Tübingen can be inferred from understanding the approach to burials in Germany.  Here, the bodies are not embalmed before burial, and so it is thought that after 20-30 years, both the coffin and the body will have naturally decomposed. For this reason, spots in a graveyard are available for re-use after that time, and are opened so that a new person can be added to the site. The one exception for this is when the person was in the military; those graves are never re-used.  You can read about that practice on this website here.

Anyway, now you know about the steps to nowhere. Look for another Monday Mysteries post next week.

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Thanks to popular demand asking for a song for this new blog post series, I was inspired to put together this little “opening credits” movie for the Monday Mysteries. It may take a few moments to load in the new window of the browser, so be patient if it doesn’t load right away; I made a size that’s suitable for any device, including iPads. Be sure to stick around at the end for the credits to see who wrote the music and where I borrowed it from. Thanks to Chris for the music suggestion; after considering some other options, I think this one works the best for a mystery series theme song. 🙂