IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section B

Abstract

200 years ago the Danish landscape was dominated by barrows: 40,000 bronze age burial mounds and 7,500 stone age megalithic tumuli, and they featured heavily in the painting and culture of the time. Today only around 400 survives across the country in a more or less redefined or restored shape. They disappeared in the agroindustrial revolution due to various factors, such as the need for shards for roadbuilding, which often came from the barrows, both the megalithic ones but also the mounds from the bronze age who were generally bordered by a stone kerb. In one example, on the road from Roskilde to Frederikssund on Zealand, Magnus Petersen, a well known draughtsman specializing in archaeology observed 400 mounds and tumuli in 1847 and only 50 in 1909. As noted the mounds and tumuli became, parallel with their destruction, integral parts of Danish culture, and soon they were restored, some where redefined and some even completely newly built to evoke lost battles, as the Tumulus to the Fallen Seamen from the Battle of Copenhagen, April 2nd 1801, or connections to the people who migrated away from Denmark as ‘Mindehøjen’ (The Memorial Mound) in Søndermarken, Frederiksberg built in 1924-1925. They now dot the landscape, city parks and castle grounds across the country indicating that the imaginary barrow is a central part of the Danish socio-cultural fabric. Other examples include the tumulus for Countess Danner (wife of Frederik VII) at Jægerspris and ‘Ole Olsens Gravhøj’, a bronze age mound in Odsherred repurposed as burial chamber for Ole Olsen, founder of Nordisk Film, in 1934. This entry will explore this fascinating story in detail from the earliest restorations to the newest redefinitions!