Boundary stone hike – Inzlingen/Riehen/Bettingen # Stage 3

Setting boundary stones with the aim of state-law functions began around the year 1300. Known as “cross stones,” they initially served to delineate the area around Basel where travelers and market visitors could count on the secure protection of the bishop. Conversely, they also marked the point up to which the exiled from the city were allowed to approach this ban zone. Over the centuries, the sovereign legal determination was increasingly dominated by property and tax law. For our border area, this applies to the 15th and 16th centuries. Since then, the border course around Basel and the Switzerland has hardly changed. This oldest stone setting also gave rise to the beginnings of cartography around Basel, as the first maps were mainly documentary evidence for boundary stone settings. Thus, the oldest surviving map by Hans Bock from 1620 reported 82 boundary stones between Kleinhüningen and Grenzach, whose number rose to 170 by 1870 and now reaches 218. This also results in the numbering from 1-150, which is only extended by subdivision with “a” and “b” for additional stone placements.

Source: The right bank border around Basel - by Gerhard Moehring in: Das Markgräfler Land, volume 4/35. Issue 1/2 - 1973