Denghoog, Neolithic passage grave in Wenningstedt-Braderup, Germany
Denghoog is a Neolithic passage grave beneath a grass-covered mound about 3.5 metres high and 32 metres across at its base. Its elliptical chamber, roughly 5 by 3 metres, is built of twelve glacial erratic boulders weighing up to 18 tonnes, with three capstones about 75 cm thick. Visitors enter from above; the original six-metre passage is one metre high.
Ferdinand Wibel opened the mound in 1868 and found an undisturbed chamber with an unburned body, a cow's tooth, pottery and six amber beads. In 1982 Joachim Reichstein's excavation uncovered gneiss or quartz tiles around the chamber and two worked stones that had served as door wings for the passage. Maria Wunderlich later identified four phases of use between 3200 and 2800 BC.
The name Denghoog comes from Söl'ring: Deng means Thing (assembly), Hoog means hill. This may indicate the mound was also used as a place of judgment. The original finds are in Schloss Gottorf, copies in the Sylter Heimatmuseum in Keitum.
Visitors enter the chamber from above, not through the original six-metre passage, which is one metre high and wide. The property has belonged to Sölring Foriining since 1928 and has been open to the public since then. A gravel path leads up to the stone doorway set into the mound.
Four distinct phases of burial practices have been identified at this site, showing that the community honored its ancestors here across many generations. This makes this location a rare record of continuity in prehistoric burial rituals.
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