Archaeologists in the Netherlands announced on Wednesday the discovery of a 4,000-year-old religious site containing a burial mound that doubles as a solar calendar, described by media as the “Stonehenge of the Netherlands”, referring to the famous megalithic complex from England, Reuters and Agerpres reported.

The mound, about 20 meters in diameter, which contained the remains of about 60 men, women and children, had passages through which sunlight penetrated during the longest and shortest days of the year.

The excavations, the results of which were made public on Wednesday, began in 2017 at Thiele, about 50 kilometers southeast of Utrecht.

“What an extraordinary archaeological find! Archaeologists have found a 4,000-year-old religious sanctuary on an industrial site,” local representatives wrote on the city of Thiel’s Facebook page. “This is the first time such a site has been discovered in the Netherlands,” the post reads.

Studying the differences in the composition and color of the clay, archaeologists discovered three burial mounds at this site, located a few kilometers from the banks of the Vaal River. Passageways inside the mound allowed it to be used as a solar calendar “to determine important moments such as festivals and harvest days,” archaeologists say.

“This hill resembles Stonehenge, the famous and mysterious prehistoric site in England where this phenomenon also occurs,” commented the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

A sensational find in the Dutch “Stonehenge”: a pearl from Mesopotamia

The researchers also discovered two smaller mounds. According to archaeologists, these three barrows were used as burial places for about 800 years.

But another sensational discovery stunned archaeologists: a glass pearl inside the tomb, which after analysis turned out to be from Mesopotamia, now Iraq.

“Four millennia ago, this pearl traveled a distance of about 5,000 kilometers,” Christian van der Linde, head of the research team, told NOS.

“Glass was not made here, the pearl must have been an extraordinary object for people because it was an unknown material,” added Stijn Arnoldussen of the University of Groningen.

But, according to him, the pearl definitely did not get suddenly from Mesopotamia to the burial place. At that time, the exchange of various items was a common practice.