A 4,000 - year - former solar calendar sanctuary has been unearthed by archaeologists in the Netherlands who have described it as the first of its kind . The size of it of four football game pitches , this vast religious site appears to have been constructed so the sun shines flat through certain passing on the master burial cumulation on the winter andsummer solstice .
The web site is locate near the town of Tiel at the construction land site of an industrial park . archeologist have been exercise here since 2016 in a series of diggings , but this colossal undefendable - gentle wind sanctuary was only latterly found in an dig this year .
It consist of three mounds in which people were buried , trace with large wooden poles . It ’s estimated that at least 60 mass were swallow up in the entombment cumulation over a flow of 800 years , while a further 20 multitude were in outside entombment mounds in another cemetery . The largest hill has a diameter of 20 meters ( 65 feet ) and seems to have served as a kind of solar calendar .
A drone image of the excavation site, showing its burial mounds.Image credit: Municipality of Tiel
For centuries , people would gather at this consecrated site on the solstices and observe as the Sun dead aligned with the hummock , bestowing the Sun ’s beam of light on a collection of the remains of their ancestors , forfeit , valuable , and other offerings .
“ Around the largest knoll was a shallow ditch with several enactment . On certain days the Sun shine straight through those passages on the mound . The most significant day were June 21 , the summertime solstice ( longest 24-hour interval ) , and December 21 , the wintertime solstice ( brusk day ) , ” the Municipality of Tiel said in astatementabout the discovery .
“ Archaeologists also found offerings in place where the Sun shone straight through the openings . Animal skeletons , but also human skulls and valuable such as a bronze spearhead , ” it continued .
Whilesimilar structureshave been found elsewhere in Europe , this is the first time such a discovery has been made in the Netherlands .
Among the site , archaeologists have concede over 1 million objects dating from the Stone Age , Bronze Age , Iron Age , Roman Age , and Middle Ages . The part of the site dating to the early Bronze Age include around 25,000 bone remains , 32,000 bone shards , 170,000 the Great Compromiser fragments , 58,000 born stones , and 10,000 flints .
One especially interesting breakthrough at the site is a green glass bead incur among one of the fundamental graves . Remarkably , analysis has shown that it originated in Mesopotamia – present - day Iraq – some 4,000 kilometers ( 2,485 miles ) away , as the Corvus flies . This indicates that these two vastly dissimilar cultures , separated by grand of miles of country , were somehow in liaison with one another up to 4,000 class ago .
