Dutch Skies

By RonBuist

Sunrise at Hunebed Noordlaren

The sun rises over the hunebed (dolmen) in Noordlaren, Groningen, The Netherlands.

It's summer in The Netherlands. Cloudless blue skies don't make great landscape shots, but the early morning light on a Hunebed (or Dolmen in English) could make an interesting image, so I got out of bed early to drive to Noordlaren, where Hunebed G01 is the only hunebed in Groningen that is still in the position where it was found. Much to my surprise the sky was completely covered with clouds, but I knew the sun wouldn't have much problems dissolving them so I waited for that to happen, with the result you're looking at. I'm pleased with how this came out; I hope you enjoy it as well.

From the Wikipedia page on dolmen:

A dolmen, also known as a portal tomb, portal grave, or quoit, is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table). Most date from the early Neolithic period (4000 to 3000 BC). Dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow, though in many cases that covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the burial mound intact.

This hunebed was created by the people of the funnelbeaker culture. There is evidence that the hunebed used to be larger than it currently is. Some more views of this hunebed can be found on this Wikimedia page.

My visit to this hunebed was actually inspired by a comment left by tig1447, who asked me if the stones in this blip were part of a hunebed. That wasn't the case, but I thought it would be a nice idea to show you all a real hunebed... So thank you tig1447 for giving me the idea.

Quite nice when viewed somewhat larger!

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