Dolmen and Menhirs at Wéris, Belgium (pic heavy !!!)

[Top-Gear-24]

A couple of days ago, my family and I went on a trip to Wéris, a small Belgian town in the provence Luxemburg.  The town of Wéris is known for its megaliths, including dolmens and menhirs. There is also a  "Museum of Megaliths" in the center of the village.  The weather was great, the scenery beautiful, and ... We seemed to be the only ones there, which is just fine by me  .  These dolmen were build around 3000 BC. Fun fact, around 1882, the Belgian government bought these menhir and dolmen sites for 1200 Belgian Francs (about 30 Euro these days ...).

Here are the pics, enjoy.


We parked the car near the first dolmen site, the "Dolmen de Wéris":







My Swisschamp came along for the hike  .






From there we walked through the fields to the next site, the "Dolmes d'Oppagne":






























Some pics of my Swisschamp  .








To show the size of these menhirs to you guys I used my Leatherman Brick, I mean Surge ... Leatherman Surge as reference  .








From there we continued our hike to the next Menhir site.





There were a lot of flies on the sun side of the Menhirs, which wasn't to my youngest son's liking ...









(And yes, he can be quite a handful ... my very own Bart Simpson ...  ).


Then we returned, through the fields, back to the car.




Where I took this self portrait in the reflection of the rear window of the car.



Hope you guys enjoyed this topic  .

[dks]

LIKE

[Top-Gear-24]

LIKE

Thanks my friend  .

[kirk13]

Nice one TG,thank you! I'd never heard of this complex before. Did you know that the dolmens are actually chambered graves that have lost their earthen mounds?

Out of curiosity,is there a junction of two rivers nearby,or is the complex on high ground?

[Corwyn]

[Top-Gear-24]

Nice one TG,thank you! I'd never heard of this complex before. Did you know that the dolmens are actually chambered graves that have lost their earthen mounds?

Out of curiosity,is there a junction of two rivers nearby,or is the complex on high ground?

Thanks Kirk  .

I knew they were chambered graves, during excavations they found bone fragments of about ten people. I found a lot of info on these Dolmen on this website.

These dolmens were built in the Neolithic Period some 5000 years ago by people of the SOM Culture. Human bone fragments confirm that burials took place in the Dolmen of Oppagne of at least ten individuals of different ages. The grave-gifts discovered, include scrapers, hammer stones and six-tanged arrowheads dating from the Neolithic Period. Pottery fragments, dating from the later time of the Bell Beaker culture in the Bronze Age indicate the possible re-use of the monument between 2200 and 2000 BC.

About 5 km to the north from this site the river Aisne flows into the river Ourthe, and about that high ground,here's what I read on the website I mentioned above:

The Wéris Megaliths are geographically located in High Belgium on a narrow limestone strip called The Calestienne. This is a limestone plateau some 130 Kms long by between 2 and 4 Kms wide.

I've been to Stonehenge in the early 90's, if I remember it correctly you could walk right next to the monument in those days, and there was nothing in the area except a parking lot, I hear there's a visitors center now, and you can't get close to the stones anymore (probably thanks to people who have to touch or even try to take home a tiny piece of this monument  ).  Anyway, my visit there had made a big impression on me, and a family vacation to the UK to visit some of the other sites there is on my "to do" list,  along with the Lake District, the Peak District, the wall of Hadrianus, the Scottish Highlands ... and so on (and don't get me started about the places in the U.S. that are on that list ...  ).