place

Eben-Ezer Tower

BassengeMuseums in Liège ProvinceTowers in Belgium
From the south with stairs Eben Ezer
From the south with stairs Eben Ezer

Eben-Ezer Tower, also known as the Museum of Flint (French:Musée du Silex), is a tower and museum in Eben-Emael, in the municipality of Bassenge in eastern Belgium. Constructed by one man, Robert Garcet (1912-2001), between 1951 and 1965, the tower is a fantastical construction built of flint rubble, and with dimensions and symbolism taken from the bible and from ancient civilisations. The tower is conspicuously topped at its four corners by large stone sculptures of the four cherubim of the Apocalypse: a bull on the north-west turret, man, in the form of a sphinx in the south-west, a lion in the south-east and an eagle at the north-east corner. Some of the seven floors of the tower are open to the public. The first few levels, the 'museum of flint', explain the history and use of the stone.As a work of outsider architecture, the tower was featured in episode 3 of Jarvis Cocker's 1999 series, Journeys into The Outside. Cocker visited the tower and interviewed Robert Garcet.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Eben-Ezer Tower (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 50.776111111111 ° E 5.6494444444444 °
placeShow on map

Address

Musée du Silex

Haie de Wonck
4690
Liège, Belgium
mapOpen on Google Maps

Website
musee-du-silex.be

linkVisit website

linkWikiData (Q3533248)
linkOpenStreetMap (385116820)

From the south with stairs Eben Ezer
From the south with stairs Eben Ezer
Share experience

Nearby Places

Battle of Fort Eben-Emael
Battle of Fort Eben-Emael

The Battle of Fort Eben-Emael was a battle between Belgian and German forces that took place between 10 May and 11 May 1940, and was part of the Battle of Belgium and Fall Gelb, the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. An assault force of German paratroopers, Fallschirmjäger, was tasked with assaulting and capturing Fort Eben-Emael, a Belgian fortress whose strategic position and strong artillery emplacements dominated several important bridges over the Albert Canal. These carried roads which led into the Belgian heartland and were what the German forces intended to use to advance. As some of the German airborne forces assaulted the fortress and disabled the garrison and the artillery pieces inside it, others simultaneously captured three bridges over the Canal. Having disabled the fortress, the airborne troops were then ordered to protect the bridges against Belgian counter-attacks until they linked up with ground forces from the German 18th Army. The battle was a strategic victory for the German forces, with the airborne troops landing on top of the fortress with gliders and using explosives and flamethrowers to disable the outer defences of the fortress. The Fallschirmjäger then entered the fortress, killing some defenders and containing the rest in the lower sections of the fortress. Simultaneously, the rest of the German assault force had landed near the three bridges over the Canal, destroyed several pillboxes and defensive positions and defeated the Belgian forces guarding the bridges, capturing them and bringing them under German control. The airborne troops suffered heavy casualties during the operation, but succeeded in holding the bridges until the arrival of German ground forces, who then aided the airborne troops in assaulting the fortress a second time and forcing the surrender of the remaining members of the garrison. German forces were then able to use two bridges over the Canal to bypass Belgian defensive positions and advance into Belgium to aid in the invasion of the country. The bridge at Kanne was destroyed, forcing German engineers to construct a new bridge.