Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: portal grave

Dolmen D52 - just outside the village of Diever - is a medium-sized dolmen. It has fourteen sidestones and two closing endstones. From the original seven capstones six are still present. One is missing and of the remaing six, three still supported on their sidestones, the other three having slipped between theirs. Dolmen D52 is 14.5 meters long and 4.8 meters wide. Dolmen D52 is already mentioned in the 17th century and is depicted on the French maps. At the time of a big survey by Prof. Van Giffen (1918) the dolmen was a total ruin. Under his supervision this hunebed has been thoroughly restored in 1953/54. In 1995 restoration works were still performed to this dolmen.

The dolmen-twins D17 and D18 are among the best known dolmens in the Netherlands. These two fairly large dolmens are easily accessible and lie behind the medieval Jacobuskerk in Rolde and on the edge of a cemetery from later times. The two dolmens were constructed between 3400 and 3200 BCE and are attributed to the funnel beaker culture. Hunebed D17 lies beautifully under an old oak tree, but makes a somewhat disorderly impression. It has 8 capstones, only one of which is still in place; the others have partly or completely slipped off their supporting stones. Originally, the dolmen had 18 side stones and 8 capstones; it is almost 14 metres long and 3.8 metres wide. Hunebed D18 looks neat and complete. To achieve this, the dolmen has been restored several times, most recently in 1993. The seven capstones each lie on their supporting stones. To keep it that way, steel pins have been drilled into two of the capstones. The dolmen has a length of over 12.5 metres and a width of 3.5 metres. Dolmen D18 is one of the largest surviving dolmens of the Neetherlands. The dolmen-twins in Rolde have been captured by various painters. Hunebed D17 is one of the most frequently depicted dolmens in the Netherlands and has appeared on paintings, tiles and postcards.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . They were built from the erratic boulders pushed here by the ice sheets during the Ice Ages. Hunebed G1 is the only one still standing in the province of Groningen (one other is exhibited in a museum). G1 is the most northerly hunebed on the Hondsrug (a complex of several ridges formed by the land ice at the end of the Saale glaciation, 370.000 to 130.000 years ago). Officially known as G1, the hunebed is colloquially known as Hunebed ’t Heiveen . The first written record dates from 1694. It was excavated in 1957. The tomb is no longer complete and nowadays has only one keystone, four uprights and two lintels remain. The most striking lintel is enormous (PiP1) - obviously far too large for the stone robbers. Although G1 is not complete any longer, by carefully marking with cement the position of the missing six uprights (PiP2), the one keystone and the two portal stones, which gives a good impression of the original size. Next to the tomb stands a large stone (PiP3) which was possibly once part of it.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . The stones of which the dolmens are built are originating from Scandinavia. They were carried south by the advancing land ice during an ice age. When the ice melted at the end of the ice age, the stones that were carried along were left behind. Hunebed D15 is located nearby the village of Loon. It has all it takes to be a complete hunebed . Five pairs of upright stones support five capstones and together they form a chamber. The chamber is closed off by two more large stones, one at either end. Halfway along one of the long sides is the entrance. Two pairs of portal stones flank a short passage providing access to the tomb. The passage was originally covered with two capstones, one of which has survived. The portal stones are connected to a ring a stones, known as “kerb”. Those stones surrounding the hunebed once marked the periphery of a barrow that covered the tomb. There are still 18 of the 23 still remaining, which is unusual because in the past these stones were usually the first to be stolen. The barrow was dug away shortly after 1870, with intention to restore the honeyed to its original state. In those days it was assumes that the mound of earth did not form part of the tomb. The hunebedden in the province of Drenthe all have the same basic design. Nowadays most of them don’t have portal stones of a kerb. Hunebed D15 is one of the few including all the possible elements.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . The stones of which the dolmens are built are originating from Scandinavia. They were carried south by the advancing land ice during an ice age. When the ice melted at the end of the ice age, the stones that were carried along were left behind. Most of these tombs in the province of Drenthe lie in fields or woods. Hunebed D4 is an exception, as it lies next to a wall of a small 19th century farmhouse and has survived nearly intact. Its ‘twin’ D3 lies close by and was for a long time partly covered by a mound of sand that was part of the original burial monument. The remains of that mound were dug away in 1870. Although almost complete, with all of the lintels and all but two of the uprights being present, these two tombs have never been restored. Only the cracks in the lintels have been filled with cement. They make a pretty picture, not least because of the wildly shaped branches of the old oak trees above the stones. Despite standing by the side of the road, the hunebedden are not immediately visible. We had to follow the signs to a narrow path that squeezes between two small dilapidated farmhouses and only then we found the large green lichen-covered lumps of stone, standing ‘head to tail’.

The main attraction of the valley and its capital Gorafe are the almost 200 Neolithic dolmens scattered in several cemeteries around the village. It is the greatest concentration of prehistoric rests in Spain. The first human settlements date back to prehistory. The picture shows a view from the ‘Parque Megalítico’ into the canyon of the river Gor just south of Gorafe; on the background the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

Hunebed 'D54' is located at the foot of the Havelterberg.