Egtved is a village with a population of 2,433 (as of 1 January 2025) near

Vejle Vejle () is a city in Denmark, in the southeast of the Jutland Peninsula at the head of Vejle Fjord, where the Vejle River and Grejs River and their valleys converge. It is the site of the councils of Vejle Municipality (''Municipalities of De ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

in Vejle municipality in the Danish

Region of Southern Denmark The Region of Southern Denmark (, ; , ; ) is an administrative region of Denmark established on Monday 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which abolished the traditional counties ("amter") and set up five larger regions ...

. Nearby is Tørskind Gravel Pit, a sculpture park. The village has a Romanesque church built in 1170, to which a tower was added in 1863. The Egtved Runestone, found near the church in 1863, is now on display in the church.

Egtved Girl

Near the village is a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

archaeological site (ca. 1370 BC) which contained an extremely well-preserved burial. It was discovered in 1921 and is one of the best preserved Bronze Age findings in Denmark. It contained the well preserved body of a girl known as the ''Egtved Girl''. On the site where she was found a barrow with a diameter of 22 metres and a height of 4 metres was built. The teenaged girl was dressed in a string skirt, a short sleeved shirt with a woven belt, and a bronze spiked belt disc. She was laid on a cow-hide and covered by a coarse

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

len blanket. Lying next to her was a

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

-bark drink container with remnants of a drink made of

bog myrtle ''Myrica gale'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Myricaceae native to parts of Eurasia and North America. Common names include bog-myrtle, sweet willow, Dutch myrtle, and sweetgale. Description ''Myrica gale'' is a deciduous shrub g ...

cranberries Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to long and in height; they have slender stems that are not t ...

and

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

. There is also a small museum describing the discovery of the rare find in detail and displaying copies of the Egtved Girl's clothing, jewellery and buckle. This has allowed a very close look at

Nordic Bronze Age The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from . The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Late Neolithic Dagger period, which is root ...

clothing and hairstyles.

Literature

C. Michael Hogan, ''Egtved Girl Barrow'', The Megalithic Portal, editor A. Burnham, 4 October, 2007

Notable people

* Poul Steenstrup (1772 in Egtved – 1864) a businessman, industrial entrepreneur and politician *

Peter Sørensen Vig Peter Sørensen Vig (7 November 1854 – 21 March 1929), commonly known as P. S. Vig, was a Danish American pastor, educator, and historian in the Lutheran church. He was integral to the formation of the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in North ...

(1854 in Bøgvad, Egtved Sogn – 1929) a Danish-American pastor, educator and historian in the Lutheran church *

Olaf Pedersen Olaf Pedersen (8 April 1920 – 3 December 1997) was a Danish historian of science who was "leading authority on astronomy in classical antiquity and the Latin middle ages."Michael Hoskin (October 1998Obituary: Olaf Pedersen Astronomy and Geoph ...

(1920 in Egtved – 1997) an authority on astronomy in classical antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages * Mette Gravholt (born 1984 in Egtved) a retired Danish handball player who played 53 games for

References

External links

Egtved Girl
Prehistoric sites in Denmark Cities and towns in the Region of Southern Denmark Vejle Municipality {{SouthernDK-stub