The Largest Hunebed - hotspots

The largest and most famous Hunebed

At 22.5 metres long, hunebed D27 in Borger is the largest prehistoric stone burial monument in Drenthe. It stands in the trees next to the Hunebed Centre. You can walk to the hunebed from the museum’s car park.

About the largest hunebed

The largest hunebed in the Netherlands is located a stone’s throw from the Hunebedcentrum. If you stand in front of it you will find out how large and impressive the monument is. The size of the stones alone is unimaginable. It is the largest stone weighs more than 20 tons and to think that it was pushed here with an ice age about 150,000 years ago, all the way from southern Finland.
The most frequently asked question from visitors is how the dolmen builders were able to build such a monument. We think we know how it went, but whether that is the case is still a big question. Let your imagination run wild when you stand in front of this impressive hunebed and touch a stone. Then try to put yourself in the world of a hunebed builder.

The largest hunebed

Secrets

The impressive monument still has many secrets. It has never been excavated, so we still don’t know everything. Over time, attempts at excavations have been made, but they were often illegal and unsuccesful.

The jolly hunebedbuilders

The first archaeological excavation

As far as we know, the earliest archaeological excavation in Drenthe took place in the Borger hunebed. In June 1685 the Fries-Groningen poetess Titia Brongersma got a number of farm hands to dig up the ground under the hunebed in search of ‘antiquities’. The first thing she found under the hunebed was a layer of rocks. Beneath that lay a few pots which immediately fell apart when the men tried to dig them up. Some contained bones which had evidently been burnt. Titia Brongersma was one of the first to use the word hunebed.

Location data

Hunebedcentre Borger

Coordinates: 52°55’49.0″N 6°47’50.9″E

The Largest Hunebed