Elmelunde burial mound
In the cemetery, east of the church, is the 3.0 m high grave mound of Elmelunde with a diameter of 20.0 m. It has never been examined, which is why an exact date is unknown. The Elmelunde Church is from 1085 and is the oldest stone church on the island Moen in Denmark .
The connection between ancient graves and later churches is known from around 100 Danish churches - e.g. B. Rimsø and Krogsbæk. The large burial mounds at churches such as Jelling are traditionally perceived as Viking Age mounds. Excavations like that of Hohøj near Mariager have shown that the large mounds date from the Bronze Age . The grave mound of Elmenlunde is 40 m above sea level and it can be assumed that it was built in the early Bronze Age (around 1700 BC).
The connection between the burial mound and the church in Elmelunde stands for the uninterrupted use of the place in pagan and Christian times. When the Christian faith was introduced to Denmark at the end of the Viking Age (800-1050 AD), the hill had been on the site for almost 1000 years. Its function as a tomb and meeting place was well known, and it may have been used in the Iron Age for subsequent burials in the old mound, as is often the case with the great mounds of the Bronze Age.
The first simple churches were founded in the Viking Age. The church in Elmelunde may have a wooden predecessor like the one in Lisbjerg near Aarhus and Hørning in Jutland , where simple wooden churches were replaced by robust Romanesque stone churches.
Elmelunde Church has some of the most beautiful ceiling paintings in Denmark. They were painted around 1500 by the Elmelunde master who also decorated the churches of Keldby and Fanefjord. The paintings were discovered in 1885 and exposed in 1887.
literature
- Peter Vilhelm Glob : prehistoric monuments of Denmark. Neumünster 1968, p.
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 59 ′ 42.6 ″ N , 12 ° 24 ′ 4.9 ″ E