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56-478: The island is made up of a sandy core of geestland and features an extended beach all along its west coast, facing the open North Sea. The east coast borders to mudflats of the Wadden Sea . Sand dunes are a characteristic part of Amrum's landscape, resulting in a vegetation that is largely made up of heath and shrubs. The island's only forest was planted in 1948. Amrum is a refuge for many species of birds and

112-626: A Breton language term meaning ' stone table ' but doubt has been cast on this, and the OED describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was tolmen ('hole of stone') and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne [sic] as dolmen , and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to

168-575: A tumulus (burial mound). Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has eroded away, leaving only the stone "skeleton". In Sumba (Indonesia), dolmens are still commonly built (about 100 dolmens each year) for collective graves according to lineage. The traditional village of Wainyapu has some 1,400 dolmens. The word dolmen entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his Origines gauloises (1796) using

224-459: A few sorts of plants, e.g. hollyhock , will grow there without fertilising. On the salt marshes along the eastern shore of Amrum, many salt-tolerant species can be found. Pioneer plants such as Salicornia europaea and alkali grasses , grow on and stabilize the mudflats. Like the vegetation, Amrum's wildlife is determined by the island's location within the North Sea. Thus there are only

280-754: A few species of wild mammals on Amrum, such as hares, mice, hedgehogs and bats. In the 12th century, rabbits were introduced as game. Still today they populate the island. A few years ago a pregnant vixen was set free on Amrum. She and her offspring caused severe damage to the island's fauna, but since then they have been hunted down. In the sea and on the sand bars off Amrum, thus within the National Park, harbour seals , grey seals and harbour porpoises have their habitats. Occasionally in December and January, young grey seals are washed ashore on Amrum's beaches due to storm surges and are thereafter nursed by

336-687: A high ecological value worth of protection. This fact was acknowledged by the establishment of two nature reserves and Amrum's proximity to the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park . Amrum's vegetation is determined by the sea and by the different types of landscapes on the island, most of which are low in nutrients . In parts of the dune belt and on the Kniepsand marram grass or sea wormwood grow, as well as numerous other sand-loving plants like sheep's bit which will bloom in sheltered areas between

392-564: A museum of local history, a wind mill and the Cemetery of the Homeless. Süddorf, today a district of Nebel, is the island's oldest hamlet. The Amrum Lighthouse is located there. Steenodde, also a neighbourhood of Nebel, had long been Amrum's only port until Wittdün, founded 1890, had taken over as the island's major ferry terminal. Of the three municipalities, Wittdün is most clearly influenced by tourism. The oldest traces of settlements in

448-701: A number of marine mammals including the grey seal and harbour porpoise . Settlements on Amrum have been traced back to the Neolithic period when the area was still a part of the mainland of the Jutland peninsula. During the Middle Ages, Frisian settlers arrived at Amrum and engaged in salt making and seafaring. A part of the modern population still speaks Öömrang , a dialect of the North Frisian language , and Frisian traditions are kept alive. With

504-542: A protected marine area was created in 1999 to provide shelter for them. The number of other marine species is equally great, the hermit crab , the common whelk , and the lugworm are all among them. Of them, mainly the sand shrimps are commercially used by "harvesting" them from the seabed with cutters . The shrimps are then wrongly marketed as "crabs" ( Krabben ). Geest Geest ( German pronunciation: [ɡeːst] , Dutch : geestgrond [ˈɣeːstxrɔnt] , Danish : gest [ˈke̝ˀst] )

560-412: A region of 838 hectares (2,070 acres) is covered with dunes that run all along the island for about 12 km. The maximal width of this area amounts to more than a kilometre. Amrum's tallest dune near Norddorf is called a Siatler (the settling dune); it reaches 32 m in height. Northward, the dune area extends into a small peninsula called Odde . In the south of Amrum, the newest settlement, Wittdün ,

616-404: A sailor from Süddorf who had been enslaved by Algerians in 1724, advanced to the rank of a General until he was allowed to return to his native island in 1736. During the late 19th century, tourism became a rapidly emerging business on Amrum and effectively changed the island's economy. During the Middle Ages, Amrum, as well as all of North Frisia proper, belonged to the so-called Uthlande ,

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672-667: A second part such as de l'alarb ('of the Arab'), del/de moro/s ('of the Moor/s'), del lladre ('of the thief'), del dimoni ('of the devil'), d'en Rotllà/Rotllan/Rotlan/Roldan ('of Roland '),. In the Basque Country , they are attributed to the jentilak , a race of giants. The etymology of the German : Hünenbett, Hünengrab and Dutch : hunebed – with Hüne / hune meaning 'giant' – all evoke

728-570: A severe oil spill in the region. The main language on Amrum is German . The North Frisian language in the Öömrang dialect is spoken by roughly a third of the population. Those 800 Amrumers are all multilingual. Due to the isolated location of the islands, the North Frisian dialects developed so differently, that Öömrang can be understood by people from Föhr, yet is hardly recognisable for those from Sylt or mainland Nordfriesland. Many Amrumers moreover speak Low German , since it had been

784-471: A variety of names in other languages, including Galician and Portuguese : anta , Bulgarian : Долмени , romanized :  Dolmeni , German : Hünengrab/Hünenbett , Afrikaans and Dutch : hunebed , Basque : trikuharri , Abkhaz : Adamra , Adyghe : Ispun Danish and Norwegian : dysse , Swedish : dös , Korean : 고인돌 , romanized :  goindol (go-in = 'propped' + dol = 'stone') , and Hebrew : גַלעֵד . Granja

840-576: Is a substantivisation of the Low German adjective güst , which means "dry and infertile". It is an Old Drift landscape, characterised by the sandy depositions of the Ice Age . In the depressions between the raised flats are wet meadows and, where drainage is poor, bogs . Geest lands are made up of moraines and sandurs . They are almost always next to flat marshlands , the geest being higher and better protected against flood but, compared to

896-546: Is a type of landform , slightly raised above the surrounding countryside, that occurs on the plains of Northern Germany , the Northern Netherlands and Denmark . It is a landscape of sandy and gravelly soils formed as a glacial outwash plain and now usually mantled by a heathland vegetation on the glacial deposits left behind after the last ice age during the Pleistocene epoch. The term geest

952-460: Is located. West of the dunes, the entire shore of Amrum is made up of the Kniepsand beach; it counts among northern Europe 's largest sand beaches. North of Norddorf there is some marshland , another small marsh area can be found between Süddorf and Steenodde. Both of them are protected from the sea by dikes . During low tide it is possible to reach the neighbouring island of Föhr by mudflat hiking . Amrum's population amounts to about 2,300 and

1008-535: Is made up of glacial deposits from the Saalian glacial period . To the east, it borders to the Wadden Sea mudflats of the North Sea. The east side is also where the island's historic hamlets are situated: Norddorf , Nebel , Süddorf and Steenodde. On the geestland core, one can find extended areas of heath and woodland which form a strip that runs along a north-south line on the axis. West of this woodland strip,

1064-522: Is tourism. In 2007 the island could provide 12,000 beds. In 2008 approximately 135,000 tourists and 1.3 million lodgings were registered. Agriculture is also being practised on Amrum and the port hosts a single fisherman. The local newspaper is called Der Insel-Bote (The Island Courier) and published by the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag . It is the common paper for both Föhr and Amrum. Moreover, Amrum

1120-546: Is used in Portugal , Galicia , and some parts of Spain . The rarer forms anta and ganda also appear. In Catalan-speaking areas , they are known simply as dolmen , but also by a variety of folk names, including cova ('cave'), caixa ('crate' or 'coffin'), taula ('table'), arca ('chest'), cabana ('hut'), barraca ('hut'), llosa ('slab'), llosa de jaça ('pallet slab'), roca ('rock') or pedra ('stone'), usually combined with

1176-652: The Golan Heights , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , and southeast Turkey . Dolmens in the Levant belong to a different, unrelated tradition to that of Europe, although they are often treated "as part of a trans-regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus Mountains to the Arabian Peninsula ." In the Levant, they are of Early Bronze rather than Late Neolithic age. They are mostly found along

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1232-602: The Second Schleswig War . For a brief period after that war, Amrum was ruled together by Prussia and Austria, yet in 1867 the island came under Prussian rule and was made a part of the province of Schleswig-Holstein. At first, Amrum formed a municipality within the district of Tondern . In 1920, the Schleswig Plebiscites resulted in a clear majority vote for Amrum staying with Germany, while Tondern fell back to Denmark. Until 1972, Amrum belonged to

1288-510: The Südtondern district which then merged into the newly created district of Nordfriesland. During the 19th century, Amrum still had a considerably lower population than today. Church records from 1821 to 1833 show an average population of 587, a census in 1860 noted 642 inhabitants, and in 1871, the population had dropped to 571. Among other factors, the decrease owed to the fact that large parts of Amrum's population had emigrated — mainly to

1344-552: The cromlech ". Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used. The later Cornish term was quoit – an English-language word for an object with a hole through the middle preserving the original Cornish language term of tolmen – the name of another dolmen-like monument is in fact Mên-an-Tol 'stone with hole' (Standard Written Form: Men An Toll .) In Irish Gaelic , dolmens are called Irish : dolmain . Dolmens are known by

1400-475: The 1990s. The Amrum forest was mainly planted in 1948 on an area of heath. Until then only a few forested regions could be found around the decoy ponds. With 180 hectares , Amrum has the largest ratio of forested land of all Germany's North Sea islands. Mainly pines, firs and birches can be found here. Meanwhile, the forest has largely lost its artificial nature. So one will encounter numerous plants on all levels and many species of fungi . The "geestland", east of

1456-702: The Bronze Age to the early Iron Age, with about 40,000 to be found throughout the peninsula. In 2000, the dolmen groups of Jukrim-ri and Dosan-ri in Gochang , Hyosan-ri and Daesin-ri in Hwasun , and Bujeong-ri, Samgeori and Osang-ri in Ganghwa gained World Cultural Heritage status. (See Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites .) They are mainly distributed along the West Sea coastal area and on large rivers from

1512-530: The Hallig Hooge and the harbour of Strucklahnungshörn on Nordstrand . Amrum's terminal is located at Wittdün, the ferries are operated by Wyker Dampfschiffs-Reederei GmbH (W.D.R.) . Most tourists will reach Amrum via Dagebüll. From there, the ferry journey takes 90 minutes on a straight route, but the more usual route via a stop at Wyk auf Föhr takes 120 minutes. The ferry service to the Halligen and

1568-588: The Jordan Rift Valley's eastern escarpment, and in the hills of the Galilee, in clusters near Early Bronze I proto-urban settlements (3700–3000 BCE), additionally restricted by geology to areas allowing the quarrying of slabs of megalithic size. In the Levant, geological constraints led to a local burial tradition with a variety of tomb forms, dolmens being one of them. Dolmens were built in Korea from

1624-859: The Liaoning region of China (the Liaodong Peninsula ) to Jeollanam-do . In North Korea, they are concentrated around the Taedong and Jaeryeong Rivers . In South Korea, they are found in dense concentrations in river basins, such as the Han and Nakdong Rivers , and in the west coast area ( Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province, Buan in North Jeolla Province, and Jeollanam-do. They are mainly found on sedimentary plains, where they are grouped in rows parallel to

1680-515: The North Sea coast these birds are usually scared off by tourists. Additionally vast flocks of migratory birds will rest on Amrum during the season, e.g. red knot , brent goose or sanderling , all of whom are able to find sufficient food along the coasts of Amrum. Moreover, a number of songbirds can be found and pheasants which were equally introduced as game are common. Lizards and amphibians, such as moor frog , natterjack toad and smooth newt are other examples of land vertebrata . In

1736-599: The Outer Lands, which only successively became parts of the Danish realm or the Duchy of Schleswig . After the conflicts between the Danish kings and the counts of Schauenburg about the rule over Schleswig, Amrum and western Föhr became an enclave of Denmark and contrary to neighbouring areas, it was not any longer a part of the Duchy of Schleswig. This state endured until 1864, when Denmark lost Schleswig to Prussia after

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1792-560: The United States. Today, more people with ancestors from Amrum live in the United States than there are on Amrum proper, and the connections between Amrum and the U.S. are still being cultivated. Eventually, tourism began only to flourish on the island when a seaside resort was established in Wittdün in 1890, which also led to a rapid increase in population. On 29 October 1998, the cargo ship Pallas ran aground off Amrum, causing

1848-431: The absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating . However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place. Early in the 20th century, before the advent of scientific dating, it was proposed by Harold Peake that

1904-524: The adults. In January 2010 the seal shelter station at Friedrichskoog announced that more and more female grey seals were "moving away from less favourable birth sites near Amrum and Sylt to Heligoland ." Birdlife is particularly plentiful. Amrum counts among the most important hatching areas for seabirds in Germany. It is the only remaining hatching area for the Eurasian curlew in the Wadden Sea, and

1960-560: The area date back to the Neolithic with a number of dolmens among them. Also many tomb sites from the Bronze and Iron Ages have been preserved. In the dunes west of the decoy pond, the remainders of an Iron Age hamlet have been found. It is unknown whether the Ambrones , who together with the Cimbri and Teutones threatened Rome around 100 BC, stemmed from this island which back then

2016-480: The direction of the river or stream. Those found in hilly areas are grouped in the direction of the hill. Also called Muniyaras, these dolmens belong to the Iron Age . These dolmenoids were burial chambers made of four stones placed on edge and covered by a fifth stone called the cap stone. Some of these Dolmenoids contain several burial chambers, while others have a quadrangle scooped out in laterite and lined on

2072-577: The dolmens of western Europe were evidence of cultural diffusion from the eastern Mediterranean. This "prospector theory" surmised that Aegean-origin prospectors had moved westward in search of metal ores, starting before 2200 BCE, and had taken the concept of megalithic architecture with them. Dolmens can be found in the Levant , some along the Jordan Rift Valley ( Upper Galilee in Israel ,

2128-405: The dunes. Also some stunted pines, bent by the sea wind, and Salix repens , the creeping willow can be found there. Until the 1970s, the rare sea holly could still be seen in the dunes. East of there are heaths and conifer or mixed forests. In some dune slacks, peat bogs can be found which occasionally host the carnivorous plant common sundew . The once abundant marsh gentian vanished during

2184-418: The forest, is mostly used for farming. Its grassland grows plants such as Harebell ( Campanula rotundifolia ), Sea Thrift ( Armeria maritima ) and Carthusian Pink ( Dianthus carthusianorum ) and several species of hawkweed . In the small marshlands, some sedges and the ragged robin may be seen. Here is the most nutritious soil on Amrum. Even the soil of Amrum's gardens is so low in nutrients that only

2240-720: The image of giants buried ( bett / bed / grab = 'bed/grave') there. Of other Celtic languages , Welsh cromlech was borrowed into English and quoit is commonly used in English in Cornwall . It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known are found in Western Europe , dating from c. 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite

2296-416: The island hosting many endangered species of plants and animals, its soil being largely unproductive for agriculture and as a popular seaside resort in general, Amrum's population today almost exclusively lives from the tourism industry. Amrum's area measures 20.4 km, making it the tenth-largest island of Germany (excluding Usedom which is partly Polish territory). Including the large Kniepsand beach on

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2352-467: The island is divided into three municipalities: Norddorf, Nebel and Wittdün. All are within the Amt Föhr-Amrum . The northernmost settlement is the seaside resort of Norddorf with a decoy pond and a sector light . Amrum's largest village, Nebel, is located near the eastern coastline. Notable sights there include the church of St. Clement with its "talking gravestones" , the Öömrang Hüs -

2408-524: The language of the coastal sailors. Only a few people speak the Danish language . Amrum's national costume for girls and women is coloured black and white and is amply decorated with silver ornaments. It is mostly worn on confirmation services or at tourist events. There are two peculiar traditions on Amrum. On February 21 the Biakendai is celebrated, where a great bonfire is lit to dispel winter. On

2464-462: The left side of river Pambar as is evident from the usage of neatly dressed granite slabs for the dolmens. At least one of them has a perfectly circular hole of 28 cm diameter inside the underground chamber. This region has several types of dolmens. Large number of them are overground with about 70–90 cm height. Another type has a height 140–170 cm. There is an overground dolmen with double length up to 350 cm. Fragments of burial urns are also available in

2520-469: The main hatching region for the common eider , but also oystercatchers , shelducks , Arctic terns , seagulls like herring gulls , common gull and the lesser black-backed gull , as well as many other species, use to hatch there on the beach, in between the dunes or at the mudflats. Since the dunes of Amrum are a protected nature reserve, they are the only dunes along the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein where seagulls and ducks breed. In other dune areas of

2576-454: The mainland terminal of Schlüttsiel was terminated in 2019 because the port of Schlüttsiel has become too silted up for extended traffic. On the island, the bicycle is the main means of transport next to cars; compared to other areas of Germany, Amrum provides an excellent network of bicycle routes. Numerous bicycle rental services exist for tourists. A bus service connects Norddorf, Nebel and Wittdün on an hourly schedule (every 30 minutes during

2632-475: The marsh, with poor soil for agriculture. Where the geest borders the sea directly, sand cliffs exist. The oldest settlements in Northern Germany and Denmark lie on geest, since it provided better protection against storm floods . Many important towns are on the boundary between geest and marshland where people could enjoy the flood-protection of the geest but still use the much more fertile soil in

2688-483: The marsh. Examples of regions characterised by geest are: Dolmen A dolmen ( / ˈ d ɒ l m ɛ n / ) or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb , usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE ) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form

2744-613: The occasion, people blacken each other's faces with soot. The festival originates from the old liturgical holiday of Cathedra Petri , which was originally celebrated on February 22. The custom is also popular in other North Frisian municipalities. On New Year's Eve the Hulken takes place, where groups of mostly young people dress up in costumes and walk from house to house to let others guess their true identity (similar to Halloween ). Depending on their age, they are either treated with sweets or alcoholic drinks. Amrum's main branch of economy

2800-489: The sea surrounding Amrum numerous fish species typical of the North Sea can be found, like plaice and atlantic herring . A 1940 report mentioned several worms like Nematodes , Archiannelida , Oligochaeta and Turbellaria , crustaceans like ostracods , and ciliate protozoans in the sands of the Kniepsand beach. Since the 1980s, the abundance of harbour porpoises in the sea off Amrum and Sylt has been increasing and

2856-509: The sides with granite slabs. These are also covered with cap stones. Dozens of Dolmens around the area of old Siva temple (Thenkasinathan Temple) at Kovilkadavu on the banks of the River Pambar and also around the area called Pius nagar, and rock paintings on the south-western slope of the plateau overlooking the river have attracted visitors. Apart from the dolmens of Stone Age, several dolmens of Iron Age exist in this region especially on

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2912-472: The spelling dolmin (the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885). The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) does not mention dolmin in English and gives its first citation for dolmen from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech ...". The name was supposedly derived from

2968-457: The summer season). Like the ferries, the bus service is operated by W.D.R.. A less common form of transport is mudflat hiking between Amrum and Föhr. From 1893 to 1939, a railway service was operated on Amrum. There is no airstrip on the island because any plans to establish one have so far vehemently been opposed. Plants and wild animals on Amrum are marked by the proximity to the sea, but some also distinguish themselves by extreme rarity and

3024-506: The western shore to the surface area results in a total area of c. 30 km. Amrum's surface area has however been subject to constant change due to land loss and gain caused by the sea. During the 19th century, a 20th part of the area recorded in the beginning of the century had been lost, but in 1913, a net gain was again recorded at the Kniepsand. Amrum is one of three isles with a geestland core in Nordfriesland. This sandy core

3080-525: Was still connected to the mainland by a land bridge. In the early Middle Ages the island was colonised by the Frisians . The oldest known record of Amrum island has been found in the Danish Census Book of King Valdemar II of Denmark from 1231. Next to salt making , agriculture, fishery and whaling , merchant shipping was one of the main sources of income for a long time. Hark Olufs ,

3136-414: Was the set for many German cinematic and TV films , e.g. Tod auf Amrum (1998) or Sommer (2008), as well as numerous crime novels. It is also the location that Netflix filmed Black Island. The island is connected by ferry services to neighbouring Föhr and to the mainland at the harbour of Dagebüll . During the summer season, a fast passenger boat offers services between the ports of Hörnum on Sylt,

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