About 100 000 years ago the earth was in an Ice Age. No, this is not about my last date… During that period, most of northern Europe was covered in ice and snow.
In the north-east of Holland lies the province of Drenthe. Nowadays a nice place to be and lots of things to see. However, some of the things you can see are not very common in the world. This province has “Wandering Boulders”. Well, they don’t wander anymore, I can assure you, but they did move a few thousand kilometres during the last ice age, thanks to the moving ice. The boulders came from the north, today’s Scandinavia.
These boulders have been placed in a specific pattern for a specific use about 5000 years ago. That means that these monuments are older than the Egyptian pyramids! The original name of these monuments is “hunebedden” from the old Dutch for Hune or Huyne meaning Giant and Bed.
Hunebedden in Drenthe
Well, the name might explain everything, but… no. It does not. The stones have not been placed here by giants and they have not been used as beds. Anyway, even a giant must have enough brains to understand that this is a rather uncomfortable way to spend the night.
The stones have been compared to the Dolmen in France’s Bretagne, but there are still some significant differences.
Here, the stones are placed together and covered with even bigger stones. The entrance to the chamber is on the long side for example. The stones are placed in an East-West alignment.
Now, the picture above does not give you an inkling of the size of the stones. Let me place myself on one of them and you will see that they are quite big…
Yours truly standing on a hunebed
Today, we cannot move these stones without heavy equipment. 5000 years ago they did it by hand.