Passage Tomb from Seefin
Coordinates: 53 ° 11 '9.9 " N , 6 ° 23' 38.2" W.
The Neolithic Passage Tomb of Seefin ( Irish Suí Finn - also called Scurlocksleap) is located southwest of Dublin in the north of the Wicklow Mountains National Park and County Wicklow in Ireland . It is located at an altitude of 621 m above sea level, near the northern park boundary on the top of "Mount Seefin". Ireland's southernmost passage, Tomb , was excavated in the 1930s and 1990s. The classic Passage Tomb is a form of the megalithic complex that is characteristic of Northern Ireland and the north of the Republic of Ireland in 219 specimens. It also occurs in Leinster , Munster and, in a few specimens, in Great Britain .
The Wicklow Mountains National Park, founded in 1991, initially had a size of 3,700 hectares around Glendalough . It has since been expanded and now, including the internationally important Liffey Head Bog, covers nearly 20,000 hectares. The area is one of the most popular walking areas in Ireland. The prehistoric monuments are grouped around Seefin Mountain and Sorrel Hill. The most important is the grave on the summit of the Seefin.
The Passage Tomb is located under a stone mound 24 m in diameter and 3 m high. Large curbs still almost completely surround the quarry stone hill. An extraordinarily narrow, inclined, four-meter-long corridor leads into the chamber from about the north. It has four side chambers and a head niche into which mound material has partially collapsed. The approximately 4.0 m long central chamber widens from the end of the aisle and narrows again at the end of the second pair of side niches towards the head niche. Two of the chamber stones have concentric motifs that resemble human faces. The capstone near the entrance is decorated with five lines. The false vault of the chamber is no longer complete. The facility has probably been open for a long time. An early Christian cross motif is incorporated into one of the cap stones.
Townlands or mountains in Counties Cavan , Cork , Kerry , Limerick and Waterford bear the name Seefin . The much lesser known Tomb by Seefin portal is in County Galway .
See also
literature
- Peter Harbison : Pre-christian Ireland - From the first Settlers to the early Celts . Thames and Hudson, London 1988, ISBN 0-500-27809-1 , p. 259.
Web links
- Pictures and floor plan ( Memento from May 26, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Description Engl. and picture