Ezinge (

Gronings Gronings (; gos, Grunnegs or Grönnegs), is a collective name for some Friso-Saxon dialects spoken in the province of Groningen and around the Groningen border in Drenthe and Friesland. Gronings and the strongly related varieties in East ...

: ''Aisen'' or ''Aizing'') is a village in the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

province of

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

. It is located in the municipality of

Westerkwartier The Westerkwartier (; en, Western Quarter) is a historical region in the Dutch province of Groningen, at the border with the provinces of Drenthe and Friesland. In the past the area was part of the historical region of Frisia. The West Frisi ...

, about 15 km northwest of the city of

. Ezinge is the oldest, constantly inhabited village in

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and is in archeological context referred to as "the

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

of the North". Ezinge was a separate municipality until 1990, when it was merged with Winsum.

Heritage

The village is a legally protected heritage district within the Middag- Humsterland region which itself enjoys the status of Dutch National Landscape and can be found on the tentative list of

UNESCO World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

. The main sight of the village is the early 13th century church which stands separated from its tower. The tower is connected to an old schoolbuilding. The three buildings are located on an artificial dwelling hill, known as a

terp A ''terp'', also known as a ''wierde, woerd, warf, warft, werf, werve, wurt'' or ''værft'', is an artificial dwelling mound found on the North European Plain that has been created to provide safe ground during storm surges, high tides an ...

, with the village and pastures around it, covering a quarter and three quarters, respectively, of the slopes. According to the Dutch Museum of National History,

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...

has been to Ezinge. Whether true or not, both Tacitus and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

wrote elaborately about the terps and the

Frisii The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and the River Ems, and the presumed or possible ancestors of the modern-day ethnic Dutch. The Frisii lived in the coastal area ...

and

Chauci The Chauci (german: Chauken, and identical or similar in other regional modern languages) were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rivers Ems and Elbe, on both sides of the Weser and ranging as far inland as the u ...

, the people dwelling upon them.

History

Before dikes were built, starting around the beginning of the second millennium, people in the Low Countries, especially in the north, built artificial hills to shelter themselves and their stock from the high tide. Repeatedly over the centuries these hills were reinforced and heightened, often with soil and waste. Cross sections of terps reveal many layers indicating periods of drought, wealth or poverty and even wars and conflagration. At that time before the dikes and later the reclaiming of land, Ezinge was situated on the northern edge of the middle one of the three historical islands of

Frisia Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West Ger ...

, now

. Around the end of the 1920s

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

diggers found curious old objects that attracted the attention of archeologist Albert van Giffen. The following decade Ezinge was the centre of attention for archeologists and historians. Van Giffen found evidence for one of the oldest Dutch instances of constant habitation. Among the objects found were 85 farm buildings and 60 outbuildings, most of them with an almost pristine ground plan visible, graves, pottery, bone ice skates, jewelry and tools. Van Giffen learned that the closer he excavated towards the church, the older the objects proved to be. Eager as he was to find even older evidence, he had the church propped and tried to dig under it but soon had to abandon his attempt due to instability of the church. All in all Van Giffen's endeavors revealed that Ezinge was constantly inhabited since 600

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

and probably earlier, making it one of the oldest towns in Europe. Roman (import-) pottery and artefacts, like a statue of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

, TVNoord, 201

/ref> were found, indicating (economic-) relations with cultures far away and a Wand, magic wand, indicating pagan beliefs. A golden pommel, closely resembling the one found in

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

indicates a close cultural connection to the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

in the 6th and 7th century CE.

Church of Ezinge

The church was built in the 13th century. It is single-nave, five-sided, closed church with a free-standing tower. A building which was constructed in 1859 and is attached to the tower, is actually not the part of the church.

Location

Ezinge is located about 15 km from the city of Groningen and about 9 km from the former municipal capital of

Winsum Winsum () is a town and a former municipality in the northeastern Netherlands. On 1 January 2019 the municipality merged with the municipalities of Bedum, De Marne and Eemsmond to form the new municipality Het Hogeland. The town of Winsum was ...

. The Allersmaborg (literally ''

Borg The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe. The Borg are Cyborg, cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a Group mind (science fiction), hive mind called "the Collective". The Borg ...

'' (castle) ''of Allersma'') was built in the 15th century on the banks of the Reitdiep river's meanders for economic and defensive purposes. Together with the nearby Aduarderzijl sluices, it acted as a strategic stronghold during battles in the Frisian civil war, the

Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Refo ...

and the Siege of Groningen respectively. The borg was later extended into a manor house. The village is connected to the provincial highway by a bridge. The Village has a supermarket, a bakery, a pharmacy, a post office, a barbershop, a liquor store and 2 pubs. The "Wierdenland" archeological museum in Ezinge offers an insight in the area's history. Further recreation can be found at the natural ice rink in the excavated terp and the annual Ezinge festival with funfair.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Westerkwartier (municipality) Populated places in Groningen (province) Former municipalities of Groningen (province) Artificial dwelling hills