Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)The Copper Age
Kongehøj
DatedEst. 3500–500 BCE
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
Kongehøj (also Kongens Høj) is a mound in Hjelm Skov near Aabenraa, in Aabenraa Municipality, Denmark, and a protected ancient monument. The Atlas gives a typological estimate for its date of 3500 to 500 BCE.
Tradition associates the mound with the Danish flag, the Dannebrog. A memorial stone was raised at the site in 1969.
Read on Wikipedia1 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.
Article
Kongehøj
FolkloreSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
The legend of the Dannebrog holds that Kongehøj, or Kongens Høj, in Hjelm Skov is the place where King Valdemar Sejr, after the Estonian campaign of 1219, displayed the Danish flag, which had fallen from the sky at the battle of Lyndanisse (Tallinn).
In 1969 a memorial stone was erected at the site on the 750th anniversary of the battle of Lyndanisse.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
In 1969 a memorial stone was erected at the site on the 750th anniversary of the battle of Lyndanisse. A school in Aabenraa has been named Kongehøjskolen after the mound.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
Denmark has a very large number of surviving barrows, protected by law since 1937. The oldest belong to the Funnel Beaker culture of the fourth millennium BCE. The great majority of the round mounds are younger, and many were raised in the Nordic Bronze Age, from about 1700 to 500 BCE.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Danish barrows (gravhøje)
Denmark has a very large number of surviving barrows, protected by law since 1937, and the Atlas draws most of its Danish mounds from the national register of monuments. The oldest belong to the Funnel Beaker culture of the fourth millennium BCE, whose long barrows and stone-chambered tombs are described in their own articles. The great majority of the round mounds are younger. Many were raised in the Nordic Bronze Age, from about 1700 to 500 BCE.
The Bronze Age barrows hold remarkable burials. In a number of them, oak coffins stayed sealed and waterlogged, so that wool clothing, hair and textiles survived; only the bones of the dead are gone. The Egtved Girl, a young woman buried beneath the mound Storehøj in a woollen blouse and corded skirt with a bronze belt plate, is the best-known case: tree rings in her oak coffin date the burial to the summer of 1370 BCE. Borum Eshøj gave similar finds from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE. Later in the Bronze Age cremation took over from inhumation, and the dead were buried in urns.
Mound-building did not stop with the Bronze Age: Danish round barrows were raised from the Neolithic to the Viking Age.
When visiting, look for flat tops where old diggers cut in, and for the hollows where kerb stones were once removed.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture, Wikipedia: Nordic Bronze Age, Wikipedia: Egtved Girl, Wikipedia: Borum Eshøj, Wikipedia: Jelling · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1219
Legenden om Dannebrog fortæller, at Kongehøj eller Kongens Høj i Hjelm Skov ved Aabenraa er stedet, hvor Valdemar Sejr efter estlandstogtet i 1219 fremviste det danske flag Dannebrog, der var faldet ned fra himlen ved slaget ved Lyndanisse (Tallinn).
Source - 1969
I 1969 blev der på stedet rejst en mindesten ved 750-års jubilæet for slaget ved Lyndanisse.
Source
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.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Denmark; this site has not been dated itself. Denmark has about 20,000 preserved tumuli with the oldest around 5,000 years old; the Neolithic examples are Nordic megalithic mounds (dysser) of c. 3500-2800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Denmark
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 55°02′10″ N, 9°23′01″ EFor a GPS or map app: 55.03599, 9.38355
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)Afd.6553500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Vestermark3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hjelm Skov3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Afd.6573500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hjelm Skov3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hjelm Skov3500–500 BCE
- DolmenHjelm Skov3500–2800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hjelm Skov3500–500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q18535185wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kongehøj (Aabenraa)" (Danish), 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 (Danish): Kongehøj (Aabenraa)CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q18535185CC0