Dolmen
Dolmens, cromlechs, Hünenbetten or Hunebeds are a large number of megalithic chamber tomb sites consisting of large stones set in formation and originally covered with earth or more, smaller stones. In many cases the covering has been weathered away leaving only the stone 'skeleton' of the monument. They are a single chamber type of megalithic tomb
Dolmen is a Breton word meaning "stone table" whilst cromlech derives from Welsh. Hünenbetten is the German term whilst Hunebed is Dutch.
Hünenbetten tombs still remain by the thousands in northern Europe, from the Netherlands and extending all along the Baltic Coast lands. In Mecklenburg and Pomerania, large numbers of these graves were disturbed when towns and cities were built. The boulders came in handy for construction and road building. There are still many left today, even with the extreme density of population in Germany and all over Europe. There are more than 1000 hunebeds on the island of Rügen alone.
Similar examples can be found all over the world, and Korea is said to have 50% of the world's total on its grounds, constructed around the 1st millennium BC. The dolmen in Kanghwa (Ganghwa in new spelling) is a northern-type, table-shaped dolmen where ancestral rites were held. It is the biggest stone of this kind in South-Korea, measuring 2.6 x 7.1 x 5.5 meters.
A hunebed is the Dutch name for a kind of Megalithic tomb found on the North sea coast of continental Europe and into the Baltic lands. They are known as Hünenbetten or Hünengräber in German. Hunebeds are chamber tombs similar to dolmens and date to the middle Neolithic.
They consisted of a kerb surrounding an oval mound which covered a rectangular chamber of stones with the entrance on one of the long sides. The earth mound has often weathered away leaving only the stone skeleton of the monument.
Some have a more complex layout and include an entrance passage giving them a T-shaped layout. It has been suggested that this means they are related to the Passage graves found in Denmark and elsewhere.
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