Historical story

Archaeologists discover devastating burial ritual

Research into a prehistoric burial mound in Oss has revealed a special burial ritual. During the ritual, the property of the dead was dismantled, after which they ended up on a pyre with the dead. Then the remains of it were overturned and some went into the grave. The mourners took certain parts and pieces of the dead person with them.

Sandwiched between three highways, Oss has a series of burial mounds that are thousands of years old. One of those graves now seems to prove that the Dutch elite were not poorer at all than their Central European peers. Until now, this was the dominant theory, because Dutch 'royal tombs' often only contain parts of valuables. For example, not a whole wagon, but only a yoke.

However, the research by Fontijn's team indicates that the valuables were deliberately destroyed. In addition, the mourners took parts of the dead and the valuables with them, just as relics were kept in the Middle Ages. The dead underwent a transformation as it were due to the destruction and became a tangible piece of history through the distribution of the remains.

An approximately 25-year-old man was found in the examined burial mound. The exceptional burial shows that he must have had a special role in society. He was buried along with a richly bronzed yoke of a chariot and horse harness from Central Europe. His burial mound had a diameter of more than 40 meters and was two meters high.

The excavation in Oss had to be carried out in connection with the construction of a highway. The huge burial mound was divided into large blocks by the archaeologists. The blocks were then lifted in their entirety and taken to the laboratory for examination. Thanks to this method, the researchers were able to collect hundreds of bronze clips – part of the horse harness – from the grave, among other things. This detailed investigation allowed the archaeologists to accurately reconstruct how the burial ritual was performed step by step.

The uncovering of the grave and the subsequent investigation is described by David Fontijn in his recently published book Transformation through Destruction. Some of the objects from the tomb can be viewed in the National Museum of Antiquities. Archaeologists from Leiden University conducted the research as part of the NWO project Ancestral Mounds, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology.