Under the supervision of Professor Van Giffen D53 has been the subject of a thorough archaeologic research and not without success. In and under the floor of the burial chamber, researchers found potsherds of 665 pieces of pottery, 3 stone axes, an arrow-point, a bludgeon, and 4 amber beads. Never before so many artifacts had been found in a hunebed.  

In 1945 the fate of this marvelous hunebed seemed to be sealed. The German Army that occupied Holland demanded this megalithic monument to be dismantled for the construction of an airfield. The inevitable demolition took place, but the Dutch authorities had taken their precautions: all 50 big and smaller boulders were pushed into a 6 meter deep pit in the ground by a shovel. Immediately after the war the stones were dug up again and in 1949 the restoration started. In 1950 the hunebed showed off again in all its glory as if nothing had happened!