This is your DIY manual for enlarging or creating your own terp—your artificial settlement mound or house platform to be protected against sea or river floods, depending on where they were built. Despite terps having been erected on the tidal marshlands of the Wadden Sea for more than 2,600 years, this manual is the first of its kind. We sincerely hope it is not too little too late now that terp-building is on the rise again, as we have observed that this often happens in an amateurish way with unnecessary safety risks being taken.

Although most terps were built in the period between 650 BC and AD 1050, it is still a current solution. Take, for example, the terp constructed next to the town of Wieringerwerf, located in the embanked land of Wieringermeerpolder in the province of Noord Holland. The town and terp were founded in the '30s of the last century. The terp was even of service at the end of the Second World War when the dikes of the Wieringermeerpolder were destroyed. Read our blog post Refuge on a terp 2.0, waiting to be liberated, about this catastrophe. The most recent terps were built ten years ago in the region Overdiepse Polder in the province of Noord Brabant. It is part of the Delta Plan after serious flooding caused by the big rivers Rhine and Meuse two decades ago. Lastly, at the time of writing, folks from the village of Blije in the province of Friesland have a cunning plan to build a terp too.

However, it deeply troubled the Nordfriesen and the Ostfriesen in Germany, and the Frisians in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands, that the residents of the province of Noord Brabant, and of the province of Noord Holland already before, do not obey all necessary rituals and procedures. In time, this might have very serious consequences for the safety and health of the people who dwell on these terps. Therefore, the Frisian bastards felt it was urgent to produce a manual to avoid future, similar irresponsible behaviour.

Be warned that children should construct ramps only under the direct supervision of an adult. Adults should read the instructions, and in particular, all warnings, carefully. Of course, we are not responsible for any injuries or accidents.

Let’s start. Be prepared, it is (only) literally a lot of bullshit!

A: Location

If you want to know where in the landscape erecting a terp is opportune, check the site www.overstroomik.nl (translation: will I be submerged?) provided by the Netherlands' government. Really, this site and its title are not meant to scare people, but to show them where their house would be submerged in case a dyke breaks, and how to be prepared. These are the spots where this manual comes in handy.

The website is only available in the Dutch language, and thus not accessible for expats living in the Netherlands. At the time of writing, the number of expats is between 40,000 and 75,000 persons and they mostly live in the low-lying coastal zone of the provinces Noord Holland and Zuid Holland. Who is counting?

B: Materials

1. eight (or more) skulls of ancestors

2. ten kilogram cattle meat with bones

3. one heirloom piece

4. three cooking pans (not too small)

5. drill

6. ten kilogram pottery

7. hammer

8. eight hundred cubic meter cow dung (depending on your ambitions)

9. shovel

10. stack of firewood

11. box fire matches

12. sea shells (enough to cover the terp surface)

C: Instructions

Best time to erect a terp is in early summer. You do not want to work with dung in the heavy spring, autumn, and winter rains. Also, for the containers to drain (see step 7 below) would take ages. Last but not least, making fires (see steps 8 and 9 below) in these rains is nearly impossible.

1. Place your ancestral skulls on the spot where you want the terp to be erected, or an existing terp enlarged. WARNING 1—Do not hurry off to kill some of your (close) family members. No! You need to collect remains of your already deceased family members. The terp is to protect you and your family, and the remains will call upon your ancestors for extra protection. Instead, there are many Grave Registration Services on the internet that can help you to locate graves of your ancestors. Some traditions recommend to add a dog skull. This manual considers it optional, as this practice of dog skulls is more related to the maintenance and protection of a house, and not that of a terp.

2. Place the meat with bones near the human skulls. Make a little pile of it. The traditional way was that several cows were slaughtered for the occasion. You can go to a local butcher but spare ribs from the supermarket will suffice, too. Argentinian matured T-bone steaks are unnecessary expensive, and do not give a better result. Of course, we stimulate to use biological products. An option of last resort is to use jelly sweets, since they consist partly of cattle bone. As a rule of thumb: ten kilogram jelly sweet for every kilogram of meat.

3. Place the heirloom piece near the skulls, too. Taking a piece from your in-laws is acceptable as long as it has serious sentimental value for your in-law family. Up to you whether or not you ask permission from your loved in-laws.

4. Now the hard work starts. It feels like Heracles cleaning the Augean stable. Dump the cow dung with the shovel gently over the skulls and over all the other items. There is no alternative but to use predominantly cow dung, since it has a great insulating effect. No human dung, please. Sorry, keep using toilets. WARNING 2—Neither horse dung, since it is highly infectious. Blending with sheep dung is not such a problem. Where it comes down to, is that you need loads and loads of dung. In this respect not much has changed over the last 2,600 years: cow dung has always been plentiful at the salt marshes. In the old days used for fuel and, of course, for building terps. Later, after the big dykes emerged 1,000 years ago, and the sea was banned, dung was suddenly needed as fertilizer. And, its insulating effects are now a threat for the climate.

5. Dig ditches around the terp. About a meter wide, but not much broader. For a man of average weight and strength, it must be possible to fierljep ('to far-leap') over the ditch with a four-meter-long leaping pole. The ditches have multiple purposes. Firstly, they are for draining purposes. Secondly, they mark your territory. Thirdly, they have a spiritual meaning, namely fencing of the inner world form the outer (scary) world. Check the Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum, the eighth-century list of heathen practices of the Frisians and the Saxons.

6. Wait until dusk.

7. At dusk, take the cooking pans and drill a small hole in the bottom. Similar as the Mayas later did with the pottery they buried with the dead. The traditional way of the Frisians was to grab used cooking pots of clay. Essence is that you need containers. Then and now. So, modern pans are perfectly okay to use. Mark the pans from the outside with some of your own blood. No specific patterns prescribed. Fill the pans with a sticky substance that slowly drips through the hole into the dung. Place these containers on the spot above the skulls, meat and heirloom piece.

8. Make a few small piles of wood and light the piles. Again, above the spot where the skulls are buried. WARNING 3—Make sure the cow dung is not too dry, to prevent the whole terp from catching fire. Dried dung is flammable. And we are not in Nordfriesland in February during the yearly biikin celebrations.

9. Wait until the liquid in the cooking pans has fully been drained into the dung. You will have enough time to have dinner in the meantime. Important to keep the fires burning.

10. Collect the pottery once the liquid is drained. It can be all sorts of pottery. If you are tired of the Delft Blue wall tiles; use those. But roof tiles, your neighbour's porcelain, etc., is perfectly fine, too. Smash the pottery with a hammer and bury it together with the empty perforated cooking pans in a pit somewhere in the newly created terp. Smash or deform the pans too. Frisians were fanatics in breaking pottery and collected meaningful pieces for decades. If you think this is weird, think of a Greek wedding.

11. Dump some of the pottery pieces in the ditches surrounding your terp, too. If you have some spare bones of your ancestors left, put it there together with the pottery pieces. It stresses the mark of your territory like a dog pisses against a tree. Additionally the water in the ditches will protect your house or inner-world against the spiritual, angry outer-world as well.

12. Lastly, cover the surface of the new terp with a thick layer of sea shells to have a solid and less smelling floor.

Have a safe and pleasant stay on your terp!

Note 1 — The ritual practices of this Manual have been confirmed by archaeologists; Nieuwhof, A., Eight human skulls in a dung heap and more. Ritual practice in the terp region of northern Netherlands 600 BC-AD 300 (2015).

You can be giggly about the practice of digging ditches and marking your territory with pottery and bones of your ancestors, but it is actually the foundation of modern Western society. Ditches, banks, walls, hedges and so on, embodied control over resources through agricultural property rights. They gave among others expression to social relationships, status and communal identity. Yes, identity originally was determined by the land the group possessed and not by genes and origin (Oosthuizen 2019).

Note 2 — On behalf of all the Frisians we do apologize for the global heating effects of our dung culture.

Note 3 — Two more terps have been built in the Netherlands recently, and both in the municipality of The Hague. Both as monuments, and not meant for a settlement platform. These are the Terp of Vink, and the terp at the town of Leidschenveen. Read our blog post Terp or wierde? Even more exotic, in '30s of the twentieth century, the dairy farm Friesche Terp was set up in Pengalengan near the city of Bandung in the Dutch-Indies, present-day Indonesia.

Note 4 — In the province of Friesland, the inhabitants of terp village Blije set up the project Terp van de Toekomst 'terp of the future' and want to build a terp at the tidal marshland again, north of the village Blije. It would be the first terp build on the salt marsh after more than a thousand years.

Note 5 — For an overview of the phenomenon of terps, go to our blog post Between Leffinge and Misthusum—Understanding the Basics of Terps.

Suggested music

Reboelje, Eilân yn de see (1999)

Further reading

Betten, E., Terpen- en wierdenland (2018)

Frankfurt, H.G., On Bullshit (1986)

Halbertsma, H., Terpen tussen Vlie en Eems. Een geografisch-historische benadering (1963)

Knol, E., Friese terpen doorgesneden (2023)

Knol, E., Hogebeintum aan snee (2019)

Knol, E., et al, The medieval cemetery of Oosterbeintum (Friesland) (1996)

Kuipers, J.J.B., Jensma, G. & Vries, O., Nederland in de Middeleeuwen. De canon van ons middeleeuws verleden (2011)

Meier, D., Die Halligen. In Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (2020)

Nicolay, J. & Langen, de G. (eds.), Friese terpen in doorsnede. Landschap, bewoning en exploitatie. Deel I: het onderzoek in woord en beeld (2023)

Nicolay, J. & Langen, de G. (eds.), Friese terpen in doorsnede. Landschap, bewoning en exploitatie. Deel II: profiel- en vlaktekeningen (2023)

Nicolay, J. & Langen, de G. (eds.), Graven aan de voet van de Achlumer dorpsterp (2015)

Nieuwhof, A., 650 Terpen langs de Noordzee (2018)

Nieuwhof, A., Eight human skulls in a dung heap and more. Ritual practice in the terp region of northern Netherlands 600 BC-AD 300 (2015)

Nieuwhof, A., Ezinge Revisited. The Ancient Roots of a Terp Settlement. Volume 1: Excavation – Environment and Economy – Catalogue of Plans and Finds (2020)

Nieuwhof, A., Scherven brengen geluk. Aanwijzingen voor opzettelijk gebroken aardewerk (2018)

Nieuwhof, A., Bakker, M., Knol, E., Langen, de G.J., Nicolay, J.A.W., Postma, D., Schepers, M., Varwijk, T.W., Vos, P.C., Adapting to the sea: Human habitation in the coastal area of the northern Netherlands before medieval dike building (2019)

Oosthuizen, S., The emergence of the English (2019)

Renswoude, van O., Leeuwarden en andere warden (2022)

Teetied & Rosinenbrot (podcast), Warften? Komm wir schütten einen Hügel auf! (2023)

Versloot, A., De herbewoning van de Friese kwelders en terpnamen. Een onderzoek naar mogelijke verbanden (2021)

Westerink, B., Wierdenlandschap (2022)

Wiersma, J.P. (ed.), Bruorren Halbertsma, Rimen en teltsjes; De Terp (1969)