D44

Großsteingrab Westenesch (D44) is a megalithic tomb belonging to the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture, in Westenesch, a farming community within the municipality of Emmen in the Dutch province of Drenthe. It lies on the Schietbaanweg at the northern edge of Westenesch. It is the only Dutch megalithic tomb on private land, and several others lie nearby.

The monument is badly damaged, so its original appearance cannot be reconstructed. Surviving elements include two wall stones, an adjoining closing stone and a capstone in the east, plus another wall stone to the west bearing a row of wedge holes. A fourth wall stone recorded by Albert Egges van Giffen in 1918 appears to have disappeared. The original orientation, dimensions and precise tomb type remain unknown.

Leonhardt Johannes Friedrich Janssen made the first description in 1848. Other early researchers included Willem Pleyte, Jan Goedeljee, Conrad Leemans, Jan Ernst Henric Hooft van Iddekinge, William Collings Lukis and Henry Dryden. Between 1904 and 1906, Willem Johannes de Wilde surveyed the surviving Dutch tombs, but his records of Westenesch were lost. Van Giffen documented the site in 1918, investigated and restored it in 1961, and it became a National Monument in 1983.

The site was recorded in 2017 for a 3D atlas by the Stichting Gratama, the Province of Drenthe and the University of Groningen using photogrammetry. Its catalogued dating is 3500 BCE to 2800 BCE, based on a typological estimate. It is identified by the Van-Giffen number D44.

D44 is a dolmen in Emmen, 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 Westenesch", shown in the original language.