ROYAL MOUNDS (JELLING HØJENE)

These two tumuli with flattened tops, spiked with a flagpole where a large Danish flag flies, are spread out on each side of a modest white church. A bucolic place where King Gorm and his wife Thyra were buried at the end of the 10th century. At least, that's what was assumed for a long time! Excavations carried out in the nineteenth century disproved this hypothesis.

In the largest, Thyras Høj in the north, measures 8.5 meters high and 65 meters wide, it is the largest burial mound of Denmark. It is built of stone and clay, covered with grass. Inside, the burial chamber is 6.75 m long, 2.60 m wide and 1.45 m high. A tomb and a few funerary objects were discovered, including a small vermeil tumbler. But no bones.

In the second, Gorms Høj to the south, slightly smaller, not even the trace of a tomb. In 1940, a wooden scaffold was found under the ground, which shows how this second mound was built in two stages, as a memorial. Some of the pieces of wood found have been dated to the years 965-970. In fact, the bones of Gorm the Old were under the nearby church, built by his son, Harald the Blue Tooth, to give a Christian burial to his father, the first king of Denmark..

Outside, you will see an alignment of stones (menhirs) that draw the shape of a boat on 354 m long and connects the two tumuli. A Viking tradition found in Lejre.