A dolmen is a burial vault made of boulders, consisting of a few side stones with a capstone on top. The whole thing is covered with a layer of sand. The word dolmen comes from the old Dutch word ‘huyn’, which means giant. In the Middle Ages it was thought that the dolmens were made by giants. They were strong enough to lift those heavy boulders. Some people use the term dolmen. That word comes from an old theory that assumed that the burial vaults were built by the Huns, a medieval people. However, scientists discovered that the boulders were from well before the Middle Ages. Because the Huns were not yet alive at that time, it is impossible that they made the dolmens.
Origin and construction
About 150,000 years ago, Europe was largely covered in ice. Also the Netherlands. The ice contained large boulders and loam, which only became visible after thousands of years as the ice melted. The Funnel People, who lived about 5,000 years ago, built dolmens in the period between 3400 and 3200 BC. They owe their name to the funnel-shaped cups they left behind in their dolmens. These cups contained food intended for the dead, so that they did not lack during their journey to the afterlife. But not only cups filled with food were put in the dolmens. The most important people from the village were often buried with many beautiful and expensive items, such as jewelry, weapons or pottery.
At the time that the Trechterv olk lived, there were no machines or cars that could drag the heavy stones, sometimes weighing up to 25,000 kilos. It is not certain how the Funnel People managed this. King Frederick VII of Denmark came up with a theory about this. According to him, the people used rolling logs, rope and oxen to move the stones. It sometimes took up to 200 men to build one dolmen and the job took about 3 months. For this purpose, a slope was first made of sand. Two openings were made on the side of the slope, against which large stones were placed. A slope of sand was also made against these stones, so that the cap stone could be dragged over that slope onto the two side stones. In the same way, several piles of stones were placed one after the other. The sand was then removed from under the covering stones, creating a space where people could stand. Originally the graves looked like a kind of sand hill, but because the sand slowly disappeared over the years, nowadays only boulders can be seen.
Viewing
There are 54 dolmens in the Netherlands. Of these, 52 are in Drenthe and 2 in Groningen. They can be found using a special letter-number system. The D and G, Drenthe and Groningen respectively indicate where the dolmen can be found. The number indicates which dolmen it is: the higher the number, the further south the dolmen is located. An example: dolmen D53 is located in Drenthe (D) and has the number 53, which means that the dolmen is located very south. There were probably many more dolmens in the past, about 100 of them. But over the years, parts of dolmens have been removed or have disappeared completely. This is mainly because people have built roads, houses or dikes from it. The largest dolmen in the Netherlands is located in Borger. D27, as the dolmen is called, is 22.5 meters long and consists of 9 covering stones, 26 side stones, 2 keystones and a gate consisting of 4 side stones and 1 covering stone. Hunebed D27 attracts around 70,000 visitors every year. Since May 2005, the adjacent NHI (National Hunebed Information Center) has been replaced by the new Hunebed Center, where a lot of information is available. The center expects to welcome 100,000 visitors annually.
Dolmens in other countries
Dolmens are not only found in the Netherlands. These burial vaults are also located in Northern Germany and Denmark. There are also similar buildings throughout Europe. Examples include Stonehenge in Great Britain and the lined stones at Carnac in Brittany, France.