Across the Fence: Hügelgrab

Today, the Germanism I have chosen will lead us into the Neolithic Age – and what we are still able to find, interestingly all over the world: the burial sites that are falling into the category Hügelgrab (pronounce approximately: ‘hoo-gal-grahb, meaning mound grave). They are gravesites built from rocks, then covered with smaller stones and soil until they resemble a mound of one or another shape.

One should think that digging a hole in the ground and filling it up would have been easier. But we also have to remember that there didn’t use to be the kind of tools that enabled human beings to dig. You simply can’t do this with hand axes. But with a group of people you can haul rocks and accumulate soil. Still, my guess is that burial sites that demanded such extraordinary effort (and would have taken numerous people away from hunting and gathering food) was meant for remarkable leaders either as warriors or of spiritual and/or healing importance. On the other hand, apparently the lack of complete skeleton finds leaves the purpose of these sites disputable. Still, they are utterly fascinating.

I was a kid when I was introduced to the idea of Hünengrab (pronounce approximately: ‘hoo-nen-grahb, meaning giant grave), apparently the earliest variant of a Hügelgrab. My family was vacationing in the Lueneburg Heath in Lower Saxony, Germany. As always, we explored the area each and every day, and these burial mounds were our destination one brutally hot summer day. I am not sure, but the place might have been the Oldendorfer Totenstatt (pronounce: ‘oll-den-dorfah ‘t-ten-stut, meaning Oldendorf site of the dead). As you can see on the photo above, a grown-up of about 5 foot 4 or 5 would almost have been able to stand upright in such a tomb. The ceiling would have been other rocks, most often slabs. The length of these sites varies; the ones we saw were between 142 feet and 263 feet! Now, imagine that place empty of human life except my family on a day that was searing, everything around dry as tinder, and a probable burial site at that – this kid was not a happy camper. Little did I know that there are apparently 900 such sites in Germany to this day, some of them undisturbed!

It was more than two decades later that I encountered another kind of Hügelgrab during a vacation on the British Channel Island of Guernsey. They are called dolmen tombs, and the probably best known of the island’s sites is Le Déhus, one that is perfectly round and consists of three chambers. It was discovered only in the 18th century, and its probably most famous feature is its ceiling decoration, the neolithic painting/carving of a bearded man with bow and arrows, the tomb’s guardian. Of course, I made it my mission to enter the tomb, ducking down very low, then searching the ceiling for the barely visible piece of art. If you are interested in the experience, here is a link:

Anybody who has read my historical mystery novel, Islands in the Storm, knows that the visit to Le Déhus and Guernsey’s other dolmen tombs deeply impressed and inspired me. Because I planted such a fictional dolmen tomb on my fictional island of Herks and had its ceiling artwork become a symbol of WW II resistance. When I visited Guernsey in 1998 (or was it 1999?) for the second time, some people still used these sites for more or less spiritual or ritual purposes.

The U.S. have their own burial mounds, many of which – same as anywhere else – have been destroyed because of farming, road construction or amateur archaeologists. The largest are the Cahokia Mounds near St. Louis, IL, belonging to a city that was founded approximately 700 A.D. and deteriorated around 1400 A.D. Their mounds were only partly burial sites. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I think I have to tell my husband I might have found another bucket list destination. Just by looking into a term, and memories, and on a map …