Dolmens D23, D24 and D25 - Bronneger

A little way beyond D21 and D22 lies one of the few triplets. Hunebed D23, D24 and D25 in Bronneger together form a triangle. It has never been clear why these graves were situated in this way. There could be several explanations for this. Were there important people lying in all the graves? Were the graves full before the next one was used? Or were deaths split by class or family? It could all be.

If you walk a little further up the sandy path, you will see a number of burial mounds without a monument. These were built by a people who lived 1,000 years after the Funnel Beaker people (the hunebed builders). What was the reason they buried their dead so close to these hunebeds is also one of many remaining mysteries.

In 1878, English scientists William Lukis and Henry Dryden, of the Society of Antiquaries in London, came to Drenthe to research the Dutch dolmens. Most of the megalithic tombs were then owned by the Dutch state and the English scholars were concerned about the way the Dutch were handling the unprofessional restoration of the dolmens. Lukis and Dryden also conducted research at graves D23, D24 and D25 at the time. They took the finds they made in the process to England and are on display at the British Museum in London.

With this research, Lukis and Dryden were ahead of Professor Van Giffen. The latter, this time commissioned by the Dutch state, conducted another survey in 1913. He rated D23 as "completely disturbed", with many stones missing and no cover mound recognisable. He assessed D24 as "very incomplete and in a very battered state". Many stones had subsided, although a remnant of a cover mound was still visible. D25 is the best preserved of the three to date. Despite no traces of the mound here either, D25 was rated "in very good condition".