Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Tumulus of Hanret
DatedEst. 4000–2000 BCE
Photo SPW(allonie) · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
De Tumulus van Hanret is een verdwenen tumulus in Hanret. De Tumulus van Hanret wordt nog vaak vermeld in literatuur over tumuli in België vanwege oude opgravingen en vondsten die bewaard bleven.
Het waren twee Gallo-Romeinse grafheuvels bij de oostelijke grens van Hanret in de Belgische provincie Namen in de huidige gemeente Éghezée op een plaats die vroeger Campagne des Tombes werd genoemd, in de omgeving van de kastelen van Montigny en Hambraine. De twee heuvels waren aan de voet met elkaar verbonden.
Eugène del Marmol, voorzitter van de "Société archéologique de Namur" voerde in de periode 1853-1855 opgravingen uit in verschillende tumuli in de streek. Dat gebeurde in 1854 in de tumuli van Hanret. De bevindingen en vondsten uit de tumuli van Hanret staan beschreven in een artikel. De vondsten van de opgravingen in die twee tumuli zijn bewaard en tentoongesteld in het Musée Archéologique in Namen
Na de opgravingen werden de grafheuvels genivelleerd, waarschijnlijk om de bewerking van het akkerland te vergemakkelijken. De plaats van de tumuli is nog zichtbaar op luchtfoto's van het gebied.
Article in DutchRead on Wikipedia3 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 Hanret: the whole story
In briefSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
The Tumulus of Hanret was a group of two tumuli at the eastern edge of Hanret, in the Belgian province of Namen. The site was in the present municipality of Éghezée, near the castles of Montigny and Hambraine, on ground formerly called Campagne des Tombes.
The two burial mounds stood connected at their feet. They were later levelled, probably to make the cultivation of farmland easier, and the mound site remains visible in aerial photographs of the area. The finds recovered from the excavations have been preserved and displayed at the Musée Archéologique in Namen.
Eugène del Marmol, president of the Société archéologique de Namur, carried out excavations on several tumuli in the region during 1853-1855. In 1854, he excavated the tumuli of Hanret, and the results and finds from both mounds were described in an article.
The Tumulus of Hanret is dated by typological estimate to 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE. It is described as a megalithic mound with integral stones. It has disappeared, but it is often mentioned in literature about tumuli in Belgium because of the old excavations and the surviving finds. Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France, and many date to the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Dutch article "Tumulus van Hanret", shown in the original language.
Summary in EnglishSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
Tumulus of Hanret is a megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones) in Éghezée, 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 Hanret", shown in the original language.
How this page was madeSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Tumulus van HanretCC 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 Hanret”, 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
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°35′18″ N, 4°57′59″ EFor a GPS or map app: 50.58846, 4.96634
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}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2097035wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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 Hanret" (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 HanretCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q2097035CC0