One of the best-known megalithic tombs in north-west Germany are the tombs north of the Engelmannsbäke river: the tombs at the "Visbeker Bräutigam" (Visbeker Groom), a group of five different in size, construction and alignment tombs from the Neolithic "Funnel Beaker Culture". The people of this "first full-peasant culture in northern Germany and neighboring areas built in the 4th." millennium BC such impressive and elaborate facilities as community graves for the dead of several generations.
The "Visbeker Bräutigam" belongs to the grave type of the so-called long or giant beds - long mounds of earth bordered with large boulders, in which the actual, relatively small grave chamber is located. The significance of this long earthen dam is not yet known. All burial chambers were originally covered by a mound, as is shown very well by grave no. 935, which is still almost complete, north-west of the "Visbeker Bridegroom". As a rule, a narrow, low passage made of boulders led to the interior of the chamber, in which the dead were buried with various objects such as clay pots, stone tools and jewelry.
Systematic excavations have never taken place here, so that in some graves the find connections are probably still largely intact, although the bones of the buried are completely dead.
The names of the tombs are more recent. The designation "Heidenopfertisch" for the grave further south already shows the interpretation of this complex in the 19th century. The name "Bräutigam" is derived from the "Visbeker Braut" (Visbeker Bride), a similar large stone grave 4 km (2,5 miles) away.
A legend arose about both of them, in which a young woman was to be forced by her father to marry an unloved man. When the bridal processions were already on their way to church, the bride wished she would turn to stone rather than be married to this man. The bride and groom and their entourage instantly turned to stone, and they still lie there today.
