Cist, Cnoc An Bhróigín Thiar, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Burial Sites

Cist, Cnoc An Bhróigín Thiar, Co. Kerry

On the south-western slope of a low Kerry hill called An Garrán, a prehistoric stone box sits open to the sky, its capstone long since removed and its interior exposed to anyone who cares to look down into it.

Bone, both burnt and unburnt, remains visible within the upper compartment of the main chamber, a detail that gives this otherwise quiet hillside an unsettling immediacy. The views from the spot range broadly from west through south, which may or may not have mattered to whoever chose this location, but the placement feels deliberate in the way these things usually do.

The structure is a cist burial, a form of grave common in Bronze Age Ireland and Britain in which a stone-lined box, typically just large enough to contain a crouched body or cremated remains, is set into the ground and sealed with a flat capstone. This example is more elaborate than many. It is orientated east to west and consists of two distinct sections: a main chamber to the east and a narrower antechamber to the west, the latter still partially roofed with stones. The main chamber is itself divided vertically into an upper compartment, now accessible from above, and a basal compartment set beneath the floor slabs, which can only be glimpsed by looking eastward from within the antechamber. Six vertical orthostats, the large upright stones that form the walls, create a roughly semi-circular end to the eastern chamber, giving the structure an unusual internal geometry for a burial of this type. The antechamber is similarly lined with orthostats, and what remains of its stone roofing suggests it was once a more enclosed space, entered from the eastern side rather than from above.

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Pete F
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