Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Tumulus of Brustem
DatedEst. 4000–2000 BCE
Photo Eebie · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Tumulus of Brustem, known as De Tom, is a Gallo-Roman burial mound near Brustem in the municipality of Sint-Truiden, in the Belgian province of Limburg. It is a protected monument.
The mound covers the cremation grave of a farmer, who probably lived in the 2nd century AD.
Read on Wikipedia1 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.
Article
Tumulus of Brustem
It stands in an area popularly called the Tomveld, close to the Roman road Brustem, which runs less than 50 metres south of the tumulus.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
The burial mound lies south-east of the village on the Tomstraat. It stands in an area popularly called the Tomveld, close to the Roman road Brustem, which runs less than 50 metres south of the tumulus.
HistorySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
The grave is the cremation burial of a farmer who probably lived in the 2nd century AD. The loess soil here was fertile enough for agriculture, so fairly large-scale farms were founded in the area early in the Roman period. A large Gallo-Roman burial mound was usually situated near such a farm, and the landowner was laid to rest in it.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
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, with later graves cut into the mound, sometimes long after the first burial.
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
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
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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°47′33″ N, 5°14′33″ EFor a GPS or map app: 50.79260, 5.24247
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.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2020031wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Tumulus van Brustem" (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 BrustemCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q2020031CC0