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Room of Heroes

circa 2900 BCE800 CE

Who are our heroes? 

Telling stories about the past, about experiences you've been through and where your roots lie – who doesn't do that? Having a history and telling stories about it is important to many. From time to time, you’re reminded of personal or shared histories. Our heroes, for example, return in the names of streets, squares, and buildings. 

  • Room of Heroes

    Who are our heroes? 

    Telling stories about the past, about experiences you've been through and where your roots lie – who doesn't do that? Having a history and telling stories about it is important to many. From time to time, you’re reminded of personal or shared histories. Our heroes, for example, return in the names of streets, squares, and buildings. 

    Something similar happened in prehistory. Not with streets, but with burial mounds. Special people receive burial mounds; grandiose monuments meant to commemorate a person. These were often filled with special burial gifts: items that are buried along with the deceased. This is how heroes are commemorated in prehistory, and a shared history was celebrated.  

    But norms and values change. Someone who was once a hero can suddenly become a villain. In prehistoric times people solved this by changing the mound: occasionally, a new hero is interred, the story connected with it changes, or a mound is simply demolished. And what do we do when a hero falls from grace? Do we adjust the story, choose new heroes, or do we carry on without heroes? 

Audio transcriptions

  • Core object – Bronze sword

    This is a core object. You can listen to information here. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to touch this object.

    Here lies a mighty warrior who commands respect! That is the message we get from the burial mound from which these items come. This display case contains a short sword, an axe, gold hair ornaments, a fire striker and beautiful flint arrowheads. They come from a grave in Drouwen in Drenthe and date back to around 1600 BCE.

    The sword is a very special find because not every grave contains one. From the burial mound it’s clear that this was an important man who should not be forgotten. 

    The sword is 33 centimetres long. It’s made of bronze with brown and verdigris colouration. The hilt has probably decayed so that only the blade remains. This too has deteriorated over time: small bits of metal have crumbled off on both sides.

    The blade has a central ridge that runs from the bottom to the point. On both sides of the ridge, the blade narrows to the thin, sharp cutting edges. The base is wider than the rest and has rounded forms that would once have been clamped into the hilt, probably made from wood. Swords had only just been invented when this example was buried along with its owner. 

    The last object in the display case is also very special. It’s a touchstone. It was used to test the purity of gold and to determine the value of gold objects. And if you had that knowledge, you had power.

     

  • Tactile object – Flint sickle

    This is a tactile object. You may touch it.

    This is a touchable replica of a flint sickle. Its shape is flat and triangular, with rounded corners and the long side is slightly curved. It measures approximately 12.5 by 6.5 centimetres – not exactly large for a tool that was used to cut sods of soil. Imagine how much work it is to cut the top layer of around 400 square metres of heathland into the sods needed to build a burial mound.

    In the Netherlands, flint sickles were first used in the Bronze Age. These typically curved tools were most likely imported from Scandinavia. The handles, usually made of wood, that sickles sometimes had, have not survived. Sickles were used, for example, to cut grain and grasses as well as sods. The shine on the sickles indicates this use.