Portal tomb
As portal Tombs be megalithic on the British Isles referred to in which two equally high upright stones forming the front of the chamber and with the door stone and the heavy-weight endstone ( Brownshill Dolmen in County Carlow : 100 t) are the "door frame" ( in the form of an H ). The mostly only half-high door stone stands or stood between the orthostats at the entrance.
distribution
Most of the facilities are in the eastern half of Ireland (27 in Donegal, 23 in Tyrone, 14 in Waterford, 13 in Sligo and 12 in Cavan). To the west of the Donegal - Cork line , only about two dozen of the 185 known systems are represented.
- Portal tombs
Kilclooney More 1 with typical oversized capstone
Portal Tomb by Bree
Brownshill
The Two Types of Portal Tombs - Scheme
Slidderyford Dolmen
Tripod dolmen
Double Tomb Ballyrenan
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description
The portal stones can be up to 3.7 m high. If this height is combined with a thick capstone, the system (like Goward in County Down in Northern Ireland or Kilmogue in County Kilkenny ) can tower over five meters. Usually a single, large capstone, inclined backwards by about 20 °, rests on the portal stones and the lower rear orthostat (s). Sometimes there are two that form a stepped ceiling (e.g. Aughnacliff , Haroldstown Dolmen , Kempe Stones , Knockeen, and Kilmogue ). Very rarely are all (three or more) bearing stones the same height and the characteristic slope of the upper side is formed by the donkey back profile of the cap stone. Side stones are sometimes on one or both sides, between the portal and end stones. In Ahaglaslin ( County Cork ), there are small stones on each side, forming a funnel-shaped access. A crescent-shaped settlement of low stones has been found at Ticloy in County Antrim , but this is an atypical structure.
The portal tomb almost always appears as a single object. However, there are examples where two systems were found in the common long hill. In Ballyvennaght, County Antrim, there is a chamber at each end of a long stone mound. In Bally Renan ( County Tyrone ) Dolmen two are in opposite directions and assembled in a long cairn while in Kilclooney More 1 ( County Donegal group) within the same hill, in the vicinity of a solid example, a miniature plant. In Malin More in County Donegal, four miniature dolmens, roughly evenly distributed, lie between two large dolmens about 90 m apart at right angles to the axis of the excavated hill and the large structures. There, like in Melkagh in County Longford , the small specimens look like daughter systems of the large ones .
The hills
There is no trace of stone mounds or hills in the vast majority of the preserved portal tombs. 26 examples of long cairns are recorded, but only a few of them have been excavated. Only remnants of hills can be seen in about two dozen (of about 160) cases. The stone mounds (Cairns) are similar to those of the Court Tombs , but seem to have been a bit narrower and less tapered at the end. In Ballykeel ( County Armagh ) documents have been found for a circulating dry masonry. In some cases, vague traces of round cairns have been noted. The dolmens are usually at the end of the long hills. There is evidence of a shallow concave courtyard at Ticloy in County Antrim and Goward in County Down and evidence of a facade on either or both sides of the portal at Tirnoney in County Londonderry .
Tripod dolmens and quoits
Portal tombs occur (also as so-called tripod dolmens) in the east of Ireland ( Legananny in County Down, Proleek in County Louth ), as well as in Cornwall and Wales . ( Bosporthennis Quoit , Carreg Coetan Arthur or Pentre Ifan ). In Cornwall and Wales, this type of megalithic complex is called Quoit . The best known is the Lanyon Quoit . They were initially treated as a special group but are Portal Tombs that have been stripped of their remaining stones.
Diffusion and context
Portal tombs date from the Irish Neolithic (3000 to 2000 BC) and occur in Ireland as well as in Cornwall and Wales . Their chambers are relatively small, as many systems are built with very massive blocks. But some are also relatively light and also tiny inside (Binn in County Donegal and Carrickacroy in County Cavan ).
The portal tomb in the cairn shows connections with the court tombs. This is supported by the similarity of the finds: pottery and spear - or arrowheads in leaf or lozenge form and hollow scrapers . In Ireland, the range of portal tombs overlaps with that of court tombs in more than two thirds of the systems. They are particularly numerous in Ulster in Counties Tyrone and Donegal. A large group is also located in eastern Leinster .
Time position
Portal tombs have long been considered a late or the last form of megalithic complex . Today this view is considered obsolete based on research by Frances Lynch (1976) in Wales.
Excavations
The Poulnabrone dolmen in County Clare was restored from 1986 to 1988. Extensive excavations have also been carried out in this context. The burials found consisted of 16 to 22 adults and six young people. The bones were laid in the decarnated state. Only one adult was over 40 years old, the majority were under 30 when they died. The grave goods consisted of a mixture of tools and ornaments. A polished stone ax , two disc beads, a perforated bone pendant, part of a bone needle, two quartz crystals , flint and more than 60 shards of rough pottery were recovered.
A distinctly different mix of grave goods comes from Ballykeel , County Armagh , Northern Ireland , where Collins found a lot of broken pottery but little flint. The pottery comprised fine Neolithic ware, probably from the first phase of the plant. Most of it was found outside the chamber, including three ornate bowls with distinctive profiles. The excavator believes that almost six kilograms of rough pottery was used before and during the use of the facility, as it was also found in the facility together with the ornate pottery.
Finds are reported from around 20 sites, but only small amounts of pottery have been found except at Ballykeel. Leaf-shaped arrowheads were found on four systems, hollow scrapers on three and scrapers of various types, particularly in Ballykeel. Stone pearls were found on some of the plants. A small ax or adze from the Tievebulliagh Flint Mine was found in Drumanone , County Roscommon .
Name parallels
In Mecklenburg, Ewald Schuldt found a few tunnel graves among the passage graves , which he called "portal graves" as an alternative, but this collides with the portal tombs of the British Isles, which are of a completely different design.
See also
literature
- Michael Herity: The Finds from the Irish Portal Dolmens In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Volume 94, No. 2 (1964) pp. 123-144
- Frances M. Lynch: Towards a Chronology of Megalithic Tombs in Wales. In: George C. Boon, John M. Lewis (Eds.): Welsh Antiquity. Essays mainly on Prehistoric Topics presented to HN Savory upon his retirement as Keeper of Archeology. Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru, Cardiff 1976, ISBN 0-7200-0096-3 , pp. 63-79.
- Frances M. Lynch: Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain (= Shire Archeology; Vol. 73). Shire Archeology, Princes Risborough 1997, ISBN 0-7478-0341-2 p. 42 ff
- Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic tombs (= Shire Archeology; Vol. 63). Shire Archeology, Princes Risborough 1990, ISBN 0-7478-0094-4 .