Rock art, Preban, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
In the southern part of a graveyard in Preban, County Wicklow, one headstone is considerably older than anyone buried beneath it.
A thin schist flagstone, roughly 88cm long and tapering from 73cm wide at the base to 40cm at the top, it was pressed into service as a grave marker at some point after its original purpose had long been forgotten. That original purpose was prehistoric. Across one face of the stone, someone carved at least 14 cupmarks, the shallow, roughly circular depressions found on prehistoric rock art across Ireland and Britain, whose meaning remains genuinely unresolved. The two largest measure 7cm and 8cm across and sit 3cm deep; the others average around 5cm. Along one edge, the arc of what was once a complete circle curves around a single cupmark, a motif sometimes called a cup-and-ring mark, though here only the remnant survives.
The stone's prehistory is difficult to date with precision, as cupmark carvings offer few reliable chronological anchors, though they are generally associated with the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. The schist itself is a metamorphic rock common to the geology of County Wicklow, which likely made it a practical and locally available choice for whoever first worked it. By the time it was set upright in the graveyard, the carved face had already begun to deteriorate; a significant amount of surface has since peeled away, taking decoration with it. The reverse face carries two further cupmarks confined to one corner of the narrower end, though weathering there may have erased more. The stone now occupies an odd double life, simultaneously a prehistoric carved object and a much later funerary marker, the earlier meaning overlaid rather than erased.