Castledamph stone circles
The stone circles of Castledamph are located in the townland of the same name ( Irish Caisleán Damh ) on a north-south oriented line west of the portal tomb of Glenroan near Gortin and Plumbridge in the Sperrin Mountains in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland . The Bronze Age stone circles were discovered in the 19th century while cutting peat at a depth of 1.8 m.
The northern circles
The north circles are the remains of two tangent stone circles. The western circle with a diameter of about 13.0 m consists of 17 stones that are quite high for Northern Ireland. The eastern circle is oval with a diameter of 11.6 by 11.2 m and consists of 20 stones. As with Er Lannic in Brittany , the tallest stones are in the contact area.
The Südring
The south ring, excavated in 1937, is a concentric stone circle made of very small stones, which is divided by a field boundary. The outer circle is about 19.8 m, the inner one, preserved as a semicircle, is about 9.1 m in diameter. There is a plaster between the rings. In the center of the inner ring, a cairn about 0.6 m high and about 3.7 m in diameter covers a small stone box that contained charcoal and skeletal remains of a person about 18 years old. There was a post pit in the cairn and a cup stone next to it, possibly used as a cap stone for the stone box .
A double row of high and low stones lies between the northern stone circles and the southern stone circle without touching them. The approximately 22.9 m long eastern row consists of 16 stones up to one meter high. The stones in the western row are much smaller at 0.2 m in height. Next to the row of stones is another but empty cairn, three alleged post pits and the more disturbed concentric east ring with a diameter of about 5.5 m.
See also
literature
- Oliver Davies: Castledamph Stone Circle. In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Seventh Series. Vol. 8, No. 1 (1938), pp. 106-112
- 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 .
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 46 ′ 36.5 " N , 7 ° 11 ′ 22.4" W.