Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Tumulus of Avernas
DatedEst. 4000–2000 BCE
Photo Varech · Public domainSource file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
De Tumulus van Avernas is een Gallo-Romeinse grafheuvel bij Avernas-le-Bauduin in de Belgische provincie Luik in de gemeente Hannuit. De tumulus ligt aan de Rue de la Tombe ten noordwesten van het dorp op zo'n 600 meter afstand van de oude heirbaan Hoei-Landen.
De tumulus is in de 19e eeuw onderzocht waarbij men stuitte op een uit onbewerkte silexblokken gevormde en zeer hecht vastgemetselde muur, waardoor het project werd opgegeven. Ook werd er toen een tweede tumulus onderzocht op het kruispunt van de oude wegen naar Hannuit en Thisnes waarin enkele objecten gevonden werden. Deze tweede tumulus is met de grond gelijk gemaakt.
De grafheuvel is acht meter hoog met een omtrek van 100 meter.
De tumulus werd bij Koninklijk Besluit van 29 maart 1976 als monument geklasseerd.
Article in DutchRead on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
Tumulus of Avernas: the whole story
In briefSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
The Tumulus of Avernas is a Gallo-Romeinse burial mound near Avernas-le-Bauduin, in the Belgian province of Luik and the municipality of Hannuit. It stands on Rue de la Tombe, about 600 meters northwest of the village and close to the old Hoei-Landen road.
The mound is eight meters high and has a circumference of 100 meters. During 19th-century investigation, researchers encountered a strongly constructed wall made from unworked silex blocks. The wall was so firmly built that the project was abandoned.
The same investigation also examined a second tumulus at the junction of the old roads to Hannuit and Thisnes. Several objects were found there, and the second mound was later leveled. The Tumulus of Avernas was classified as a monument by Royal Decree on 29 March 1976.
Its estimated date is 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE. Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France, and many were raised in the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. They are generally hemispherical mounds built over a central burial, either an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel. Barrows were also often reused for later graves.
No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Dutch article "Tumulus van Avernas", shown in the original language.
Summary in EnglishSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
Tumulus of Avernas is a megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones) in Hannut, Belgium. A typological estimate: 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Dutch article "Tumulus van Avernas", shown in the original language.
How this page was madeSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
The summary at the top of this page was written by MiniMax-M3 (2026-11-08) from the cited Wikipedia article “Tumulus van Avernas”, translated from Dutch. The numbers in it were checked automatically against the source text. The rest of the page is the article itself, the structured records and computed distances.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Low Countries and French barrows
Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France. Many were raised in the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The Bell Beaker phenomenon of the late third millennium BCE brought a new burial rite to western Europe: individual burials, often under a tumulus and with weapons, in contrast to the collective, weaponless burials of the earlier Neolithic. The Dutch hunebedden, the megalithic tombs of the north, belong to the earlier tradition and are described in their own article.
Round barrows are hemispherical mounds raised over a central burial, which may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel. Barrows were often reused: later graves were cut into the mound, sometimes long after the first burial, and many attract satellite burials. In France and Belgium, tumuli of the Hallstatt period belong to the early Iron Age, from about 800 BCE; from phase B of the Hallstatt sequence, tumulus burial becomes common and cremation predominates.
Dating relies on pottery and metalwork, and on radiocarbon dating where a mound has been dug. Many have been ploughed down, so the Atlas map reflects where mounds survived and were recorded as much as where they were built.
When visiting, look for the surrounding ditch or kerb, and for a later disturbance at the centre where a later grave or an old digging has cut the mound.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Round barrow, Wikipedia: Bell Beaker culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Hunebed · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1976
De tumulus werd bij Koninklijk Besluit van 29 maart 1976 als monument geklasseerd.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 4000–2000 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Belgium; this site has not been dated itself. Belgian barrows: the tumuli of Weris in the Belgian Luxembourg date from the 4th and 3rd millennia BC and the tumulus of Court-Saint-Etienne to around 3,000 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Belgium
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 50°42′05″ N, 5°04′17″ EFor a GPS or map app: 50.70130, 5.07125
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2409909wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Tumulus Avernas 01.jpgVarechPublic domain
- Hannut-Tumulus van Avernas (1).JPGRomaineCC0
- Hannut-Tumulus van Avernas (2).JPGRomaineCC0
- Hannut-Tumulus van Avernas (3).JPGRomaineCC0
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Text from the Wikipedia article "Tumulus van Avernas" (Dutch), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van AvernasCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q2409909CC0