The hunebed story still had one surprise up its sleeve! Completely unexpectedly in 1982, during building work on a mound on a factory site in Heveskesklooster, to the east of Delfzijl, a hunebed was discovered two metres under the clay. Two years later, a stone kist or chest from the Neolithic age was also discovered at the same place. (And who knows what still lies hidden under the Groningen clay …?) Furthermore, it was of an unusual type: what archaeologists call an ‘extended dolmen’, where the entrance is not in the middle but at one end in place of a keystone.
A large quantity of earthenware fragments and flints were also found at the site. The 6 uprights, 1 keystone and 3 lintels were removed to the Aquarium in Delfzijl and the hunebed was reconstructed in its original state. For €4.50, you can see not only the hunebed but also the aquarium with fish from the North Sea, a large collection of shells and an exhibition about the sea-faring history of Delfzijl.
The stone kist can be seen in the Hunebed Centre in Borger.
Officially the reconstructed hunebed is known as G5. Why G5? Where are G2, 3 and 4 ? Those are hunebeds near Glimmen which have long disappeared but which were numbered by Van Giffen. Rather inconsistently because he did not do that in Drenthe, where he indicated missing hunebeds by adding a letter after the number of the closest existing hunebed.
Location of G2
For more information about this and other hunebeds in Drenthe and Groningen see
www.hunebedden.nl and www.hunebeddeninfo.nl
Text Hans Meijer
Translation Alun Harvey
Photos Hans Meijer
