This is a Jewish gravestone dating to 1323 and it commemorates the life of a lady called Rachel. I’ve already made reference to the synagogue built in 1280 and the pogrom of 1349. The gravestone was uncovered during excavations near the city hall in 1953 and it’s thought that it was hidden during that pogrom. The Jewish community were expelled from Cologne in 1424 and they didn’t return for centuries, so all memory of this gravestone would have been lost. In what has been a traumatic history for Jews in the city, at least the memory that this was meant to preserve has not been entirely lost.