Borum Eshøj Gravhøj

Borum Eshøj is one of the most significant Bronze Age burial mounds in Denmark. It lies northwest of Aarhus on a plateau that is unusual for the country. Originally nine meters high and 38 meters in diameter, the mound was greatly reduced by earlier excavations and is now presented as a restored core mound about 19 meters in diameter and six meters high. The three oak trunks found inside, which had been fashioned into tree coffins, date to around 1400 B.C. and hold the best-preserved textile finds in the world from the so-called Mound People culture.

Visitors can gauge the archaeological importance of the site from the reconstructed finds on display in the National Museum. The mound contained the graves of one woman and two men, whose clothing and jewelry were remarkably well preserved. The woman wore a long woolen dress with a belt and a cap made using the sprang technique, while the men were buried with cloaks, hats, and bronze weapons. Especially impressive is the hearth at the top of the mound, which yielded richly furnished grave goods such as a bronze sword wrapped in gold wire and a gilded button. These finds show that the mound was used over a long stretch of the Bronze Age, making it a key testament to prehistoric burial culture in Jutland.