Drombeg stone circle — Drombeg Stone Circle, County Cork

Stone circle

Drombeg stone circle

Ireland

Datedc. 1100–800 BCE

Photo Cawlef · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons

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Overview

About this site

Overview

Drombeg stone circle, also known as The Druid's Altar, is a small axial stone circle 2.4 km (1.5 mi) east of Glandore, County Cork, Ireland. It is protected under the National Monuments Act.

Although not an especially significant example, it is one of the most visited megalithic sites in Ireland. Radiocarbon dating of samples from the site suggests that it was active c. 1100-800 BC.

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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.

1100–800 BCEHow this date was established: Radiocarbon datingMeasured

What this badge meansA physical measurement of this site: a radiocarbon date, a tree-ring count, a luminescence date, or a record that can itself be dated.
Source for this date

Article

Drombeg stone circle

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As an axial or Cork-Kerry stone circle, it has two taller entrance stones placed opposite a recumbent axial stone.

Drombeg stone circle

Description

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The circle originally consisted of seventeen closely spaced stones, of which 13 survive. The stones are of local sandstone, and the circle spans 9.3 metres (31 ft) in diameter. As an axial or Cork-Kerry stone circle, it has two taller entrance stones placed opposite a recumbent axial stone. The axis is oriented south-west towards the setting sun, and the arrangement is said to orient the monument towards the setting sun at the midwinter solstice. The most westerly stone, the recumbent, is 1.9m long and has two egg-shaped cup-marks, one with a ring around it. It is flanked by a pair of axial portal stones 1.8m high.

Terence Meaden suggests that a petroglyph on the northern side of one stone represents an erect phallus, about 200 millimetres (7.9 in) long, and that a further carving on the upper surface of one of the recumbent stones, previously identified as an 'axe-like outline', is vulvar in nature. Both carvings are prehistoric.

Approximately 40m to the west are two round stone-walled prehistoric huts and a fulacht fiadh. Evidence suggests that the fulacht fiadh was in use until approximately the 5th century AD. The larger hut had a timber roof supported by timber posts, and the smaller hut contains the remains of a cooking spot on its eastern side. A causeway leads from the huts to the fulacht fiadh, which has a hearth, a well and a water trough.

Excavations

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Following a number of surveys in the early 1900s, the site was excavated and restored in 1957. An inverted pot found close to the centre of the circle contained the cremated remains of a young adolescent wrapped in thick cloth. It lay alongside smashed sherds and a collection of sweepings from a pyre.