Loughmacrory

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Loughmacrory Wedge tomb with "Fairy tree"

The megalithic sites of Loughmacrory ( Irish Loch Mhic Ruairí , a district of Milltown) are located at An Creggan, about 13.5 km east of Omagh in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland . The three plants named after the nearby lake (lough) were built between 3000 and 2000 BC. Chr. Wedge Tombs ( German  "Keilgräber" ), formerly also called "wedge-shaped gallery grave", are double-walled, aisle-free, mostly undivided megalithic buildings from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age .

Wedge tombs

Loughmacrory III (known locally as "Dermot and Grania's Bed") is a southwest-northeast-oriented structure, about 11.4 m long and at the front about 5.9 m wide and 1.3 m high structure. The width at the end is about 3.1 m with a height of 1.75 m. It has four flat capstones, each about 2.0 m × 1.5 m with a maximum thickness of 50 cm. The antechamber is about 2.4 m and the main chamber about 5.0 m long. The gap between the chamber wall and the curbs is filled with stone material. Otherwise the cairn has been removed. 16 of the supporting stones of the antechamber and the chamber have been preserved, 23 of the edge stones of the hill have been preserved, five to six are missing. Loughmacrory is on the top of a hill. In Ireland there are fairies (the Sidhe), a race from the Otherworld, whose name means "the people in the hill". Places like Loughmacrory Hill are considered gateways to the Otherworld. The old hawthorn (Crataegus; in Ireland also Fairy Tree, also called "fairy tree") is one of the 5 well-known sacred and magical trees in Northern Ireland. ( 54 ° 38 ′ 36.5 ″  N , 7 ° 5 ′ 32.7 ″  W )

The grave has a split portal in the southwest, which is a feature of the wedge tombs in this area ( Cashelbane ). The remains of six people were found in the burial chamber. An old hawthorn ( Crataegus ) grows in the middle of the wedge tomb (also known as a fairy tree in Ireland ). Fairy trees are common on the roadsides and especially at the intersection of roads in Ireland. Usually they are gnarled old bushes.

Loughmacrory I is a badly damaged wedge tomb. ( 54 ° 38 ′ 16.2 ″  N , 7 ° 6 ′ 9 ″  W )

Court Tomb

Loughmacrory Court tomb
Forms of Court Tombs

( 54 ° 38 ′ 15.3 ″  N , 7 ° 5 ′ 42.7 ″  W ) 600 m south of the Wedge Tomb is the Court Tomb of Loughmacrory (also called Loughmacrory II). It is about 30.0 m long and ten meters wide at the western end and twelve meters wide in the east. The maximum height of the cairn is about two meters. The courtyard is about five meters deep and 4.5 m wide in the east. There are two portal stones that define the access to the gallery, while the number and arrangement of the chambers is unclear. The gallery does not extend to the west end of the Cairn. However, it is possible that the last five meters of the cairn was occupied by a side chamber. The Loughmacrory Court Tomb is shown on the map as the "Long Cairn". 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 .

About a kilometer away lies Portal Tomb of Altdrumman .

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