Hellig Kvinde

Hellig Kvinde, meaning Holy Woman, is a 2.6 m high standing stone, a bautasten, on a stone mound. It stands by the main road between Svaneke and Gudhjem, near the mouth of Gyldensås on the north-east coast of Bornholm, Denmark.

The stone is dated to the Iron Age and is surrounded by a ship setting of smaller stones called Hellig Kvindes børn, the children of Hellig Kvinde. It is described as a greeting stone, which demands politeness. It is also a meeting place for the group Bevar Bornholmsk, at the Hestestenene above Gudhjem.

The Atlas record gives a typological estimate for its age rather than a measured date, and no excavation is described.

In Scandinavia a standing stone is a bauta or bautastein, and the word Bauta is also used in Germany. Overall 1,176 menhirs are registered in Norway, and the stones are often included as part of a tomb. As a rule each grave was marked with a single stone, but sometimes several stones were used.

The introduction to the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson says that it was the custom to burn all the dead and raise monoliths for them, and that this custom was kept in Norway and Sweden for a long time. In Sweden menhirs were erected as markers for the graves of warriors until the thirteenth century. Many Scandinavian standing stones are therefore not Neolithic.

Hellig Kvinde is a menhir (standing stone) in Bornholm regional municipality, Denmark. Wikidata describes it as: menhir in Bornholm Regional Municipality (2185). A typological estimate: 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Danish article "Hellig Kvinde", shown in the original language.