Stammershalle

Facts

Overflowing with ancient monuments

By Maria Panum Baastrup, Mag.art. i forhistorisk arkæologi, København Universitet (17 stories)

Among the open cliffs between Tejn and Helligdomsklipperne lies an area called Stammershalle - a fantastic collection of ancient monuments comprising single-stone monuments or menhirs, stone coffins and stone heaps. The flint tools showed that people were present back in Palaeolithic times. In the northern part of the area, a Bronze Age stone heap has been found (1300-1100 BC). The body was cremated and put in an urn, and the grave gifts numbered a knife, jewellery, and a pincers – all made of bronze. Iron Age graves are also scattered across the landscape. The many ancient monuments prove that over the centuries people returned to the same place to bury their dead.

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How did the Iron Age burials take place?

Story written by Maria Panum Baastrup

Time / Periode -1300 -1100

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The Iron Age graves near Stammershalle vary considerably. Like today, the dead were interred in many different ways. Some of the dead were cremated, and the remains of their funeral pyres are buried in the ground. Some of these graves are under large flat stones, stone symbols or menhirs. Sometimes the dead were not cremated at all. They were buried in stone coffins surrounded by smooth stones found on the beach. Some of these stone coffins contained clay pots, swords, shield handles and iron belt buckles. All these finds are grave gifts that accompanied the dead on their final journey.