3The photograph has since gone viral

The snap was posted on the Whores of Yore Twitter account shared an image of the statue and in less than a week, the Twitter post got almost 40,000 likes.

They said: “On the walls of Cologne City Hall, hidden under a larger statue of Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden, is a carving showing a man giving oral 𝑠e𝑥 to himself. It dates to around 1410 and no one really knows why it’s there.”

Former city conservator Ulrich Krings said that the history behind the statue is actually not as complicated as some might want to believe and it was just a widely popular motif during Medieval times.

Krings said: “It was about virtually showing their arse to the authorities.

“With crudely displayed 𝑠e𝑥uality they wanted to show that they couldn’t care less about the morals or even the public order of the authorities.”

Walter Geis of the the Cologne monument preservation authority explained that most often, this was shown by images showing the seven deadly sins, such as in this instance lust.

According to local media, such mocking statues were tolerated by the local authorities under the condition that they were not clearly visible, such as high up on buildings, in dark corners, or underneath bigger statues.

Barbara Schock-Werner, who worked for many years on the restoration of the Cologne Cathedral, called it a “funny provocation” but said such images should not be over-interpreted.

3The bizarre sculpture has been visible on the front of Cologne city hall,in Germany since it was built in 14103The snap was posted on the Whores of Yore Twitter account shared an image of the statue and in less than a week, the Twitter post got almost 40,000 likes