The object on the gable stone of 10 Kersenmarkt is a simplified mill iron, as it often appears in heraldic arms. Such a mill iron was an H-shaped piece of iron with a hole in the centre. It was fastened to the upper millstone, the so called runner. The square shaft fitted into the square hole, so that with the help of the mill iron, the rotating movement could be transferred to the runner.
Mills were of enormous importance in Maastricht - and elsewhere as well. There were grain, graot, volute, saw, tanner, gunpowder, glaze and paper mills. At every suitable spot along the Jeker and even on ships in the Meuse, watermills were built: the machines of the Middle Ages.
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