
Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Grabhügel
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Grabhügel is a megalithic mound in Stammheim, Switzerland. It lies at 47.6286° N, 8.7904° E.
Catalogue recordSources and licences
Article
Grabhügel
ContextSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Central Europe has a long sequence of burial mounds. The Unetice culture of the Early Bronze Age came first, and the Tumulus culture of the Middle Bronze Age, about 1600 to 1300 BCE, raised mounds across Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland and neighbouring regions. The Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age made the mound grand again. From the Hallstatt B phase, tumulus burial becomes common, and the Hallstatt period proper, 800 to 450 BCE, produced the "princely" graves of elites who lived in fortified hilltop centres. The regional background, “Central European tumuli”, is given below.
Dating
No date has been published for this site.
Setting
3 other recorded monuments lie within 10 km (0 within 1 km, 0 within 5 km), 3 of them of the same type. In Stammheim, Switzerland, 1 of the 1 recorded monuments are of this type.
The nearest recorded monuments are Sankert (Iron Age barrow group) (7.1 km north-east, megalithic mound); Tumulus group (7.2 km south-west, megalithic mound); Oberholz, bronze age-hallstatt burial mound (7.9 km south, megalithic mound); Seelihau, Iron Age burial mounds / reburials (10.3 km north-west, megalithic mound).
ProtectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
Heritage status: class A Swiss cultural property of national significance.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Central European tumuli
Central Europe has a long sequence of burial mounds. The Unetice culture of the Early Bronze Age came first, and the Tumulus culture of the Middle Bronze Age, about 1600 to 1300 BCE, raised mounds across Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland and neighbouring regions. The Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age made the mound grand again. From the Hallstatt B phase, tumulus burial becomes common, and the Hallstatt period proper, 800 to 450 BCE, produced the "princely" graves of elites who lived in fortified hilltop centres.
The largest Hallstatt-period mound in Central Europe is the Magdalenenberg near Villingen-Schwenningen. Its central tomb, of an early Celtic prince, has been dated by tree rings to 616 BCE. The mound once stood 10 to 12 metres high with a diameter of 104 metres; 126 further graves were set in concentric rings around it in the decades after the prince's death, and about 500 BCE the central chamber was plundered by robbers whose wooden spades archaeologists later found. Folklore marks it too: in the 1640s, during a series of witch trials, several women confessed under torture to dancing with the devil on the Magdalenenberg. That is evidence of a belief, not of any event.
The Atlas's records in Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are mostly tumuli of this Bronze Age and Iron Age sequence, and most are dated only by their form.
When visiting, look for mounds grouped in a cemetery rather than alone, since families and communities buried together, and for ploughed-down circular rises in fields.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Magdalenenberg, Wikipedia: Unetice culture, Wikipedia: Tumulus · 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.
Where it stands
Switzerland
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 47°37′43″ N, 8°47′25″ EFor a GPS or map app: 47.62859, 8.79039
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.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sankert (Iron Age barrow group)
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Tumulus group
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Oberholz, bronze age-hallstatt burial mound
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Seelihau, Iron Age burial mounds / reburials
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Bachtelli, Iron Age burial mounds
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Buecher Schüppel, Iron Age burial mounds
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Vorder Hemming, Iron Age finds and earthworks of unknown age
Degernau menhir2800–1800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q29932966wikidata.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Sankert (Iron Age barrow group)7.2 km NE
- Tumulus group7.2 km SW
- Oberholz, bronze age-hallstatt burial mound7.9 km S
- Seelihau, Iron Age burial mounds / reburials10 km NW
- Bachtelli, Iron Age burial mounds11 km NW
- Buecher Schüppel, Iron Age burial mounds11 km N
- Vorder Hemming, Iron Age finds and earthworks of unknown age20 km W
- Degernau menhir29 km W
- Dergernau Dolmen30 km W
- neolithic tumulus necropolis31 km SW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Compiled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a regional background article based on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Wikidata Q29932966CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0