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Interpretive illustration of a typical Passage tomb (passage grave)

Passage tomb (passage grave)

Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery W-M 9a

Ireland

DatedEst. 3400–2900 BCE

Where it standsSources

No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.

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About this site

Overview

Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery W-M 9a is a passage tomb in County Sligo, Ireland. It lies at 54.2563° N, 8.5154° W.

Catalogue recordSources and licences

Where it sits in time

The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.

The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.

  1. Göbekli Tepe9600 BCE
  2. First farming9500 BCE
  3. Avebury2600 BCE
  4. Great Pyramid of Giza2560 BCE
  5. Stonehenge2500 BCE
  6. Bronze Age collapse1200 BCE
  7. Rome founded753 BCE
  8. Parthenon447 BCE
  9. Hadrian's Wall122 CE
  10. Machu Picchu built1450 CE
12,000 BCE8,000 BCE4,000 BCE1 CE1,500 CE
This site

Est. 3400–2900 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical for this type

The published range for this kind of monument in this region. It is not a date for this site.
Source for this date

Article

Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery W-M 9a

2 min read237 words

Context

Sources for this section

A passage tomb is a burial chamber covered in earth or stone, with a narrow access passage made of large stones. The type is found along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, and in Ireland and Britain passage tombs often lie in large clusters, called cemeteries. Ireland has four great ones, known as the "big four": Brú na Bóinne in the Boyne Valley, Loughcrew, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore, each with its own character. Most were built in the fourth millennium BCE. The regional background, “Irish and British passage tombs”, is given below.

Dating

Sources for this section

No scientific date has been published for this site. Monuments of this type in Ireland are generally dated 3400 BCE to 2900 BCE; the site itself may fall inside or outside that range.

The passage grave of Newgrange in Ireland belongs to the megalithic constructions of c. 3400 BC.