Ubby Dysselod and Grønnehøj

Facts

When the smallholder entered the burial chamber

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

The two passage graves near Ubby in Northwest Zealand date back 5,200 years to the Neolithic period. All that is known of the Grønnehøj burial mound is that it was excavated in the early 1800s. Ubby Dysselod was found in 1845 when Lars Eriksen, a smallholder, was digging in the mound. On removing the entrance stone, he would have stepped into a soil-free chamber containing skeletons and earthenware vessels. The stones in the passage grave were later offered up for sale. But the count of Lerchenborg intervened and the passage grave was made a listed monument. The height of the burial chamber is a full 2.4 metres, which is unusual. Two of the portal stones are 'twin stones', that is two halves of the same slab of stone.

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A mystery to me

Story written by Torben Dehn

Time / Periode -3200

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In preparing for a lecture in Holbæk on the region's passage graves, I used the copier to print drawings on transparencies for the overhead projector. By chance, the two transparencies showing the ground-plans of the Grønnehøj and Ubby Dysselod passage graves happened to be placed on top of each other, one face up, one face down. I looked twice, and then again. The two ground-plans were a perfect match. The two passage graves are 70 metres away from each other, and are thus 'twins', even though their burial chambers are completely different in height and architecture. The twinning phenomenon – of duality and mirroring – is common in the architecture of the stone tombs in features such as 'twin stones'. But how and why Stone Age Man built two so very different passage graves to an identical ground-plan is still a mystery to me.