European Megalithic Routes to be dedicated in Denmark
Minister for Culture Marianne Jelved will be dedicating a new European Cultural Route on Tuesday, 27 August 2013, at 10:20 a.m. at the Klekkendehøj megalithic tomb on the island of Møn.
Very soon, Denmark’s Stone Age structures – the large passage tombs that are older than the Pyramids – will be a part of the European Cultural Route known as Megalithic Routes.
Megalithic Routes winds its way in and out of the German, Dutch, Swedish and Danish landscapes, where ancient megalithic graves are visible and tell of a common European culture 5,000 years ago.
The route is a German idea that the Danish Agency for Culture has helped develop and propose as a European Cultural Route to the Council of Europe because Stone Age graves comprise an interesting historical component of our common past.
The Council has given its go-ahead to the idea, and an opening ceremony will take place at the Klekkendehøj passage grave on the island of Møn on Tuesday, 27 August 2013, between 10 and 11 o’clock in the morning.
Director of the European Institute of Cultural Routes, Penelope Denu, will present the approval for the project to the chairperson for Megalithic Routes, Bodo Zehm; and Danish Minister for Culture Marianne Jelved will dedicate the route together with its progenitor, the German local historian Klaus de Laak, by cutting the ribbon to an exhibition in the passage grave with a flint dagger.
Interviews with the participants may be conducted after the dedication ceremony and speeches. The Danish Agency for Culture will provide light refreshments.
Press photos from the opening may be requested from https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zikcv6zarx6jsfr/zbJkBXGpWs
For additional information: Press officer Peter Kronsted, tel. 22 78 99 55, pkr@kulturstyrelsen.dk and archaeologist Lars Bjarke Christensen, tel. 33 74 51 25, lbc@kulturstyrelsen.dk.
Address: Klekkendehøj passage grave, Klekkendevej 13, 4792 Askeby
Schedule:
10:25 Director General of the Danish Agency for Culture, Anne Mette Rahbæk, will provide welcoming remarks.
10:27 Chairperson for Megalithic Routes, Bodo Zehm, will speak.
10:30 Director of the European Institute of Cultural Routes, Penelope Denu, will speak.
10:40 Minister for Culture Marianne Jelved will speak and dedicate the route by cutting a ribbon to the passage grave with a flint dagger, along with the originator of the route, Klaus de Laak.
The Minister will then visit the exhibition.
11:00 The Danish Minister for Culture will leave Klekkendehøj.
11:15 Dennis Schratz will speak on behalf of the patron, former president of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering.
11:25 The originator of the route, Klaus de Laak, will speak.
11:35 Opportunity to visit the passage grave.
12:00 The event at Klekkendehøj will end.
FACTS
2004 Stasse der Megalithkultur is founded in Osnabrück by historian Klaus de Laak.
Museums and local authorities create a 330-kilometre tourist route to the area’s Stone Age mounds.
2010 Osnabrück’s Museum of Cultural History initiates a common European project with the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Germany in which a route is created through all the participating countries. The Megalithic Routes association is founded.
2013 The five countries apply to the Council of Europe to be approved as a European Cultural Route. In May, the Council designates Megalithic Routes as a European Cultural Route, because the route has distinctive cultural-historical value and tells the story of our common past in an exciting way.
The dedication of the route will take place in Denmark, because we have the most and finest megalithic graves with almost 3,000 preserved dolmens and passage graves. The Klekkendehøj passage grave on the island of Møn is one of the most famous and well-preserved. The Danish Agency for Culture has fitted out one of its two chambers, so visitors can see how a passage grave looked when it was in use in the Neolithic Age.
The project has been financed by the A.P. Møller and Chastine McKinney Møller Foundation for General Purposes in connection with the project Danmarks Oldtid i Landskabet [Denmark’s Antiquity in the Landscape].
Danish members of Megalithic Routes: The Danish Agency for Culture, GeoPark Odsherred and Museum Southeast Denmark.
Read more about:
The Megalithic Route: http://www.megalithicroutes.eu/
Klekkendehøj: http://www.kulturarv.dk/1001fortaellinger/da_DK/klekkendehoej
Danmarks Oldtid i Landskabet: http://www.kulturstyrelsen.dk/kulturarv/fortidsminder/danmarks-oldtid-i-landskabet/
European Cultural Routes: http://www.culture-routes.lu/php/fo_index.php?lng=fr&dest=ac_00_000&lng=en
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