Creevykeel
Creevykeel Court Tomb , mostly Creevykeel for short ( Irish An Chraobhaigh Chaol ), is a restored Stone Age megalithic complex in Yeats County in the Republic of Ireland . It is located near the coast road, near the village of Cliffony in County Sligo . Court Tombs are among the megalithic chamber tombs ( English chambered tombs ) of the British Isles . With around 400 specimens, they are found almost exclusively in Ulster in the north of Ireland or in Northern Ireland .
Creevykeel is considered to be the best restored "full-court" facility of its kind. It is thought to have been built around 3,200 to 2,500 BC. Dated. Creevykeel was discovered by the 4th Harvard Archeological Expedition in 1935 . In the following years, the monument was completely exposed and restored. Megalithic systems are ancient cult buildings.
description
Creevykeel is a closed court tomb , i.e. H. The entrance to the forecourt enclosed by the hill was via a narrow, possibly once covered, short corridor. It is located on the eastern side and leads through the 4.5 meter long space formed by orthostats into the courtyard. In U-shaped open systems, this courtyard is formed by an external exedra . Here (always at Central Courts), however, it is a 17-meter-long and 10-meter-wide orthostat oval. Originally it was laid out with stone slabs or cobblestones. In the west is the entrance to the gallery with the chambers.
A dolmen-like construction made of concave orthostats provides access . The tomb gallery is again an oval about 10 meters long and 3.0 meters wide and is divided into two originally roofed chambers. In its original state, the gallery was covered by the trapezoidal, 61-meter-long stone mound. Two side chambers were found in the western area of the stone hill. These are laid out at right angles to the hill and have their entrances from the sides of the hill. The remains of another chamber were found at the narrow end of the hill. These secondary chambers were probably covered by cantilever vaults .
- Creevykeel
Archaeological finds
In the main chambers of the monument, the remains of four cremations and grave goods were discovered. The grave goods is Neolithic carinated shells, polished stone axes and scrapers and arrowheads from flint and stone bead . A polished diorite ax was found at the entrance to the gallery . Large amounts of pottery were found in the northeast chamber. From a later, presumably early Christian period, there is a furnace for iron smelting, which was excavated in the northwest corner of the forecourt.
Nearby are the Wedge Tombs by Coolbeg and Carrownamaddoo 2 and the Court Tomb by Creevymore .
See also
literature
- Seán Ó Nualláin: Survey of the megalithic tombs of Ireland. Volume V: County Sligo 1989 ISBN 0-7076-0080-4
- Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic tombs Princes Risborough Buckinghamshire 1990 ISBN 0-7478-0094-4
- Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic tombs Princes Risborough Buckinghamshire 1990 p. 10 “During the neolithic period there were other forms of burial in addition to megalithic tombs. Indeed it appears that in most areas only part of the population was buried in megalithic tombs and that the monuments fulfilled a ritual function in the community ".
Web link
Coordinates: 54 ° 26 ′ 19 ″ N , 8 ° 26 ′ 0 ″ W.