Visiting all Danish megalithic monuments

Last year, Willem Donker began a six-year project to visit, document, and provide detailed information about all the megalithic tombs (hunebeds) in Denmark. This information is not fully available in Denmark, making it a great challenge for Willem to take on. He previously completed a similar project in Germany, where he recorded and photographed all the megalithic tombs in the country—a task that took him ten years. He has also conducted research in Poland.

Now, in Denmark, he believes that—using the knowledge he gained in Germany—he can complete the project in six years. There are an estimated 2,400 sites in Denmark, so it is quite an undertaking. He started last year, during which the first 400 megalithic tombs were visited. This year, he visited 450 more.

In 2025, Willem focused on the area south of Zealand, including the islands of Falster, Lolland, Møn, and Bogø. The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Danish government and the Centre for Cultural Heritage – Archaeological Monuments and World Heritage. Since 2017, they have been working on a large-scale national project to restore the monuments. However, the scope of the work is too large for them to manage entirely on their own. Willem is assisting by creating a comprehensive overview of the collection in a short amount of time.

An overview of the megalithic tombs visited in 2024 and 2025 can be found by clicking here.