Fanygalvan and Cahermackirilla
Fanygalvan and Cahermackirilla ( Irish Fán Uí Ghealabháin and Cathair Mhic Iriala ) are two immediately neighboring archaeological sites southwest of Carran in the Burren of County Clare in Ireland .
A recent stone wall running north of Wedge Tomb is the townlands border , so some monuments are in Fanygalvan townland, others in Cahermackirilla townland. Wedge Tombs ( German "Keilgräber" ), formerly also called "wedge-shaped gallery grave", are aisle-free, mostly undivided megalithic buildings from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age .
The Wedge Tomb on the hill forms the focal point of the complex of monuments. In its vicinity there is a row of stones , a boulder burial , the foundations of several beehive huts and some cairns , one of them with a stone box ,
The Wedge Tomb
The six meter long gallery opens to the west. Each of the long sides is formed by two plates. One of these wall panels is inclined inwards about 45 ° on the north side. It is supported by a stone inside the gallery. The lateral collapse also had consequences for the 10 tonne massive cover plate, which broke and the smaller section of which is now on the floor in front of the gallery. The massive cover plate did not completely cover the complex, which may have been extended later and had another cover plate that is now lost. The front panel is still in place and does not fill the entire width of the gallery. The remains of a double wall can be seen on the southern side. A few meters to the west are the remains of a second wedge tomb. Its top plate (approximately 2.5 m × 1.0 m) lies on smaller plates.
Stone box
About 50 m east of the Wedge Tomb is a large circle of stones that could represent a younger enclosure. However, its proximity to the other monuments indicates that it was created close to them. A little outside of its southern edge lies a small cairn, the worn upper half of which reveals a stone box . It is only 30 cm wide and is formed on the sides by two 1.5 m long limestone slabs. The cairn was about 1.5 meters high and four meters in diameter. The box is relatively large for the small size of the cairn.
Enclosure and boulder tomb
About 400 m to the south and above a three-meter-high cliff there is an almost rectangular enclosure made of dry masonry , which measures approximately 6 m by 4 m. On one side, two large, round boulders form the entrance. Outside the opposite wall there is a stone circle in the center of which is a large boulder that seems to cover a small hollow.
The row of stones
Immediately north of Wedge tomb, but already in Cahermackirilla townland, there is a northeast-southwest row of three menhirs . Although there are references to prehistoric rows of stones in the Burren, this preserved row is a rarity in County Clare. The middle stone is 1.6 m high. The smallest (perhaps broken) stone is in the southwest.
Hut foundations and stone mounds
About 100 m to the west lies the foundation of a beehive hut ten meters in diameter. There is a larger enclosure nearby and more hut circles near a nearby cairn. Another cairn is two meters high and about ten meters in diameter. A stone wall runs over its base on the southern side. A 30 cm high elevation is all that remains of a second cairn.
Dun (cashel)
Unlike in the rest of Ireland, the stone forts of the Burren are also known as Cashel (otherwise Caher or Dun ). Still in Cahermackirilla lies a destroyed cashel or stone fort that occupies one of the highest points on the mountain. The walls on the west and north sides still rise more than four meters. The south and east walls have been replaced by dry stone masonry . The center of the round system is 1.5 m above the surroundings. On the inner west wall are the ruins of two buildings. One of its walls is still two meters high. Much smaller ruins can be seen in the west and east of the Cashel, which indicate that there was a small settlement around the Cashel, probably in early Christian times.
See also
literature
- Estyn Evans: Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland. A guide. BT Batsford Ltd., London 1966.
- John Waddell: The Prehistoric Archeology of Ireland. Galway University Press, Galway 1998, ISBN 1-901421-10-4 .
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 10.6 ″ N , 9 ° 6 ′ 45.5 ″ W.