MEGALITHS > HUNEBED ATLAS > D17

D17 Rolde | Click images to enlarge | << Back to Hunebed Map
  • Photo 1
  • Photo 2
  • Ground Plan
  • Location Map
DRENTHE HUNEBED MAP



D17 Rolde

Type: Gallery grave
Size: 13.9 x 3.8 m
Town: Rolde
Location: St. Jacobskerk

Latitude N: 52.990108
Longitude E: 6.649377
Orientation: 97° (90° = E-W)

Folk-name: Duvel's Kot (with D18)

First reported 1547 Antonius Schonhovius Batavus

D17 - a picturesque, rambling hunebed straddled by a sprawling old oak tree - and its twin D18 are separated from Rolde's St. Jacobskerk by the old church cemetery. Other hunebed traces have been found under the church. Schonhovius says in pre-Christian times strangers were driven through its passage, pelted with mud and sacrificed. In 1547 it was called Duvel's Kot (Devil's Bed), likely referring to giants. Folk legend attributes them to a stone-throwing contest with giants in Gieten, during which Rolde's return fire resulted in hunebed D14 in Eexterhalte (Gieten). Renaissance writers (and maps), basing themselves on the Roman annals of Tacitus, identified the Rolde twins as the Pillars of Hercules (also a giant).

Same group: D18 | Related: D14