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Dieren en planten

Water en land

Landscape elements   Terpen   

Mens en Milieu

Terp by Hegebeintum, Friesland. , Ecomare

Terpen

From the Bronze Age up to around 1200, large areas of the present provinces Groningen, Friesland and North-Holland consisted of extensive marshes, interchanged with lakes and peat bogs. Large parts of this countryside bordered the sea. The inhabitants were hunters, fishermen and farmers. In order to protect themselves from floods, they built artificial mounds to live on. These mounds were called terpen, or as they say in Groningen, wierden. As the terpen grew larger, entire villages and churches were built on them. There are still many villages in Friesland and Groningen which began as a terp or wierde village.

  • What's a terp?

    The word 'terp' comes from an old Frisian word for village. The Groninger term 'wierde' comes from the word 'werd' or 'wird', also old Frisia, meaning height. Churches have been built on terpen since around 1100. The first churches were built from blocks of tuff or granite, imported from the Eifel in Germany. Bricks have been used since 1250. As a rule, the church was built on the highest point of the terp, so that it was the most protected building during floods. If the highest point was already built upon, then a new terp was built next to the village, especially for the church.

  • Terpen in North-Holland

    The principle of living on terpen was common practice in the low-lying parts of the entire Frisian kingdom. In the first half of the Middle Ages, the kingdom stretched out far into the Western Netherlands, which is where the name West-Friesland comes from (an area in North Holland). Various villages and cities in North Holland began as terp villages, which is visible in Schagen by the way the old city center has been built. Terpen were not necessary on Texel or Wieringen since one could live on the higher lying boulder clay and wind-borne sand deposits.

  • Terpen in Friesland

    Thousands of terpen existed in the present Dutch province of Friesland, where now only around a thousand can still be recognized. The Frisian terpen are handled further in the chapter on the history of Frisian coastal landforms.

  • Terpen in Groningen

    In Groningen, terpen are called 'wierdes'. The first wierdes were built more than 2500 years ago, just as in Friesland. The center of the round village wierde was first used as common ground. Later on, this is where the church was built. There was always a source of drinking water close to the center, called a 'dobbe'. The front of the farms lay in the direction of the center of the terp and the stall was located on the outer side. The land was allocated with reference to the farms, creating a typical radial division pattern. From the air, these villages resemble a kind of bicycle wheel. A ring road ran along the foot of the terp, called the 'ox passage'.
    There are also modern wierdes. In Groningen, the company Grontmij needs to get rid of contaminated mud and therefore will restore three wierdes using the dredged material. After cleaning the mud, the worst pollutants are dumped first, the cleaner mud is poured on top, followed by another layer of ground and then houses will be built on top.

  • Terpen in Germany
    Terp with lighthouse, Westerhever, Ecomare

    Thousands of terpen can be found along the German coast between the Dutch and Danish borders. Most of the terpen were built in the period between the beginning of the Christian calendar and the Middle Ages. Archaeologists only became interested in the terpen in Germany towards the end of the 19th century. Terpen were not dug up for their fertile ground and so the spectacular finds that had made in the Netherlands were unknown in Germany.
    The individual farm terpen from the beginning of the Christian era slowly grew into large village terpen. The most famous terp from the Roman Days is the Feddersen Wierde. This terp is the only one in the entire North Sea region which has been totally dug up. The terp was four hectare large and four meters high. The various layers have been well preserved, which is why the Feddersen Wierde is also referred to as the Trojan of the North.
    The terpen in Germany were deserted during mass migrations in the 5th century A.D.. People only started living in the area again in the 7th century. The farmlands were protected by low ring dikes in the 11th century and the dikes were raised to such heights after 1300 that they even offered protection from winter storms.

  • Halligen: terp islands

    Halligen are small low islands in the wadden region of Schleswig-Holstein. They are not made up of sand and dunes as are most of the other Wadden Islands. They began as terpen in an extensive and fertile marsh and peat bog region. Major tidal floods transformed the surrounding landform almost entirely. After the flood of 1962, low dikes were constructed around the Halligen. The largest Halligen island is Langeness. The twenty terpen on Langeness are regularly surrounded by water.

  • Terpen in Denmark

    In general, the terpen in Denmark much younger that those in Germany and the Netherlands. They are located in two areas: just north of the German border and landward of the island Rømø, under Skaerbaek. The latter area dates back to the 13th century. Colonists from Friesland built four to five meter high terpen, offering room for a farm with annexes. The terpen are still obvious. The first village was destroyed by a flood in 1362. All of the eleven other farms were destroyed by a flood three hundred years later. Another major flood occurred in 1720, but only after the flood of 1814 did the last families leave the terpen. Nowadays, one house stands on the highest point of the terp and is used as an exhibit hall.

  • Terpen disappear
    Areas where terpen were found, Ecomare
    Areas where terpen were found, Ecomare

    As the people grew to trust the sea dikes, the terpen lost their function as a place of refuge during floods. The fertile terp soil was often dug up and used on farmlands. Hardly any terp in Friesland escaped the excavations. Because the terpen were considered so valuable, the owners had to pay higher taxes. This only encouraged the excavations, declining the size of the terp (and thusly the value). In addition, the fertile excavated soil could be sold.
    In North-Nederland, 60% of the terpen disappeared between 1850 and 1950. Farming over the centuries on the terpen also caused erosion. Every time a farmer ploughed his land, another layer of two to three centimeters of ground disappeared. The terp nearby Peins, east of Franeker, was seriously damaged in this way. During the Middle Ages, this terp measured three to four meters high, while it is no longer two meters high. The farmers of Peins are now ploughing in the layer containing finds of habitation during the Roman Times, which means that 2000+ years of the above-lying ground has disappeared.
    Another major threat is dehydration caused by a lower groundwater level. This has dramatic consequences for the archaeological heritage: wooden ladles from the Roman Days, skulls, jewellery made from material other than gemstones: they rot as soon as they are exposed to the air. This makes the contents of the terp 'illegible', in archaeological jargon, and is very unfortunate since lots of Frisian history during the Golden Age is being lost.
    Because of this deterioration of the terpen, the Province of Friesland produced a plan in 2006 to subsidize farmers. They receive several hundred euros to maintain the terpen in a friendly manner. The farms are not allowed to grow nor is it allowed to harvest during the rain, when water can erode the terp via the deep tractor tracks. The province is also considering purchasing terpen.

Terp Ezinge, Iron Age, in 3D