Artefact Hunters Plunder Ancient Danish Burial Sites

Examining the destruction

Danish archaeologists are devastated, artefact hunters have dug up and plundered four ancient burial sites in 'Mangehøje' north of Grindsted near Billund in Jutland ('CW', 'Grave robbers plunder ancient Danish burial sites', the Copenhagen Post October 24, 2014). It is believed the sites date back to the Stone Age some 4,000 years ago. According to Lars Bjarke Christensen, an archaeologist from the Culture Ministry the last time graves were plundered in Denmark was back at the end of the 1890s. Hmm, Anglo-Saxon burial sites and Roman cemeteries are dug over for collectables on a regular basis in the UK, and you will not find any British archaeologists shedding a tear over the destruction. British archaeologists, you see, are in "partnership" with the diggers.

Christensen is gutted over the theft and the loss of Danish history. ”It's a disaster. The grave robbers have ruined part of Denmark's history,” Christensen told DR Nyheder. ”The things we could have learned from the burial mounds have now been erased from history. We can no longer investigate how ancient life was in this area of Jutland.”

Of course the soil in Denmark is different from that in Britain. Over there, you dig up an archaeological site and its gone. In Britain, the magic stratigraphy fairies come at night and do their healing dance to rejuvenate the Earth, heal the ripped layers of history, and restore everything as it was, so there's no need to get worried. At least that's what a New Agey metal detectorist told me. .