Burial Mounds
Intro
During the Stone and Bronze Ages, prominent important people were laid to rest in burial mounds. The mounds were then monuments to the dead, so they had to be visible and placed high in the landscape where many people might pass by.
In many places, you can see rows of burial mounds pointing down towards fords across watercourses from both sides – a clear sign that mounds can tell where former roads went through the landscape crossing streams.
Many large burial mounds are located along Lundhøjvej, which are probably from the Bronze Age, but there have also been many small mounds, which today are ploughed away. They are seen most clearly when fields are ready for sowing. In the bare soil on the small hills in the fields you may often see a colour difference, marking the location of a burial mound.
A row of burial mounds follows Lundhøjvej from Svejbæk and the Dover area to the outskirts of Ry. Then it turns south of the town and down towards Siim Grusgrav (Siim Gravel Quarry). On the lowlands by the river Gudenå, there are no burial mounds, but they then re-appear on the Gl. Rye (Old Ry) side of the river.
Both on the Siim side and the Gl. Rye side of the river Gudenå, are the remains of old road systems leading down to the river. In the river itself, are the remains of a bridge and dam construction from around the year 1000 – that is the end of the Viking Age. The rows of burial mounds also tell that Lundhøjvej is the modern version of a very old road through the landscape, and that the road crossed the river Gudenå at a ford next to Holmens Camping. The ford was so important that the Vikings built a bridge on the spot.
So perhaps Lundhøjvej was one of the main roads in the landscape in ancient times.