Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)The Copper Age
Thinghøj
DatedEst. 3500–500 BCE
Photo Hjart · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Thinghøj is a round dolmen (Danish runddysse) in the south of the Klelund Plantage, northwest of Lindknud near Vejen, in the Region Syddanmark in Jutland, Denmark. It is a megalithic monument of the Funnel Beaker culture, built between 3500 and 2800 BCE.
The protected mound is about 0.9 metres high and 11.0 metres in diameter. Its central chamber has not been investigated.
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
Thinghøj
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was described by A. P. Madsen (1822–1911) in 1892. At the foot of its western half stand 16 kerbstones close together. In the eastern half there are four separate kerbstones, up to 1.2 metres high.
In the centre lies a chamber that has not been investigated. It is covered by a heavy capstone about 2.2 metres long, 1.6 metres wide and 1.0 metres thick.
Several other megalithic monuments lie nearby: the passage grave of Sønder Bøel, the long dolmen in the Klelund Plantage and the Store Jyndovn.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
Several other megalithic monuments lie nearby: the passage grave of Sønder Bøel, the long dolmen in the Klelund Plantage and the Store Jyndovn.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
Burial mounds in Denmark have been 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
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
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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°34′37″ N, 8°54′59″ EFor a GPS or map app: 55.57708, 8.91646
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.
Jyndovn3500–2800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Klelund3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Dværghøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Klelund3500–500 BCE
Store Jyndovn3500–2800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Jægerhøj3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Stenbjerg3500–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Tornhøj3500–500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q30140006wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Runddysse Thinghøj" (German), 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 (German): Runddysse ThinghøjCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q30140006CC0