D12

Großsteingrab Eext-Es, also known as D12, is a poorly preserved megalithic passage grave near Eext in Aa en Hunze, Drenthe, Netherlands. It stands on a meadow west of Eext and can be reached by a field path. Several other megalithic tombs lie nearby, including the Treppengrab von Eext, Großsteingrab Eexterhalte, and Großsteingrab Anloo-Zuid.

The grave is aligned south-south-east to west-north-west. Its chamber is 6,8 m long and 2,8 m wide, with a passage formed by two wall stones that no longer survive. The original chamber had four pairs of wall stones along its long sides, an end stone on each short side, and four capstones. Today, the southern end stone, three wall stones on the eastern side, and three capstones remain. One capstone bears seven cup marks, five of them in a row.

The monument was first mentioned and investigated in 1756 by Johannes van Lier, who found several ceramic vessels and drew a collar flask. Willem Pleyte and Jan Goedeljee photographed the region’s megalithic tombs in 1874, while Albert Egges van Giffen documented Eext-Es in 1918. Van Giffen excavated and restored the grave in 1952. It has been a Nationaldenkmal since 1978 and was recorded in a 3D atlas using photogrammetry in 2017.

Eext-Es is a tomb of the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture, dated by typological estimate to 3500 BCE to 2800 BCE. Tombs of this kind in the Netherlands are known as hunebedden and were built between 3470 and 3250 BCE, remaining in use until about 2760 BCE. The site later yielded a Funnel Beaker-period collar flask; a flint axe and a medieval ceramic beaker may instead have come from the neighboring Großsteingrab Eext (D13).

D12 is a dolmen in Aa en Hunze, Germany. Wikidata describes it as: dolmen in the Netherlands. A typological estimate: 3500 BCE to 2800 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the German article "Großsteingrab Eext-Es", shown in the original language.