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Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)The Copper Age
Maglehøj
DatedEst. 3500–500 BCE
Photo Kim Bach · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
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Overview
About this site
Overview
Maglehøj is a prehistoric burial mound at Frederiksværk, in Halsnæs Municipality, Denmark. It is 35 m in diameter and 5.5 m high, and is a protected ancient monument.
It is built of turf cut from a fairly large area of fertile ground, and its summit lies 70 m above sea level.
Read on Wikipedia2 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
Maglehøj
The mound rests on a large hill of clay till from the last ice age, shaped by wind erosion after the glaciation and, on a smaller scale, by gravel digging.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound rests on a large hill of clay till from the last ice age, shaped by wind erosion after the glaciation and, on a smaller scale, by gravel digging. It is distinctly domed, with a narrow footpath and two deeper tracks that all lead to the top. From the summit there is a panoramic view over Frederiksværk, Arrenæs and Arresø and towards Hillerød; to the south, in clear weather, the towers of Roskilde Cathedral can be seen. On top stands a pedestal, a brick block about 1.5 m high with a bronze plate on one side.
A few metres south-west of Maglehøj lies Lille Maglehøj, 20 m in diameter and 3.5 m high.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
In the 1980s the burial mounds were cleared of trees and bushes, but they have since become overgrown again. In the winter and spring of 2009 Halsnæs Municipality and the Nature Agency for North Zealand began to make the mounds visible again. The vegetation is to be cut back every year to keep a low plant cover, so that the soil is not lost to rain and wind. Lille Maglehøj is also looked after from time to time by the municipality's technical department.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Danish): Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)CC BY-SA 4.0
Denmark has a very large number of surviving barrows, protected by law since 1937. 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
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.
Photographs
3 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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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°57′54″ N, 12°02′16″ EFor a GPS or map app: 55.96500, 12.03777
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)Lille Maglehøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Skrædderhøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Buskhøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hundalshøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kregme3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Traphøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sonnerup3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Tjørnehøj3500–500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q12325712wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Panorama from Store Maglehøj (Frederiksværk).jpgKim BachCC BY-SA 4.0
- Lille Maglehøj DK3300 01.jpgKresten Hartvig KlitCC BY-SA 3.0
- Maglehøj (Frederiksværk) og omgivelser.JPGKresten Hartvig Klit ( Krestenklit at da.wikipedia )CC BY-SA 2.5
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Maglehøj (Frederiksværk)" (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