Flintinge Byskov

Facts

Heavy capstone skewed

By Torben Dehn, Konsulent, mag. art. (10 stories)

The ancient monument in the woods of Flintinge Byskov on the island of Lolland is a 5,200-year-old passage grave from the Neolithic period. It was excavated in 1873 by Rolf Viggo de Neergard, owner of Fuglsang Manor. In the chamber he found flint implements and amber beads from the single grave culture. There was also a large volume of crushed flint. This was originally used to seal the roof and had fallen into the chamber when the capstones were uncovered. The chamber also contained a Bronze Age tomb. This may have been the burial that caused the flint to fall in when the roof was disturbed. After the excavation, the lord of the manor put the grave under preservation.

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5,000-year-old construction flaw

Story written by Torben Dehn

Time / Periode -3200

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Working onMegalithic graves inspires colossal respect for the Stone Age 'engineers'. My colleague Svend Illum Hansen and I stood inside the passage grave and imagined the construction site as it was more than 5,000 years ago. As we did the drawings, we suddenly understood why one of the corners in the chamber looked odd. The capstone had been put on wrong, so the top of a wallstone had come away and the wall was skewed. As we stood there under the massive capstones, we could almost here the dread sound of the rock crunching. The builder was no doubt cursing 5,000 years ago when the capstone went on wrong. Presumably the stone crushed some of the carefully built up foundations. The patch-job repair tells us that even for these master builders, things could go wrong.

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Comments to the story (1)

Neville Clay , more than 6 years ago

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Hi, Torben! My wife and I now live at the skovfogedhus a few hundred metres to the east of this grave. Fifty metres south of our house, five metres from the forest road, there is what looks like a capstone straddling what is now a drainage ditch/stream with a pile of stones next to it. Is it possible that this is another grave not recorded in the various archives? It can't be a bridge and it's too regular in shape to be a an ice-age deposit. Any ideas?