Knowth Kerbstone K109

Kerbstone K109 is one of the 127 kerbstones numbered in Professor George Eogan's record of the Knowth monument. It is located on the northern side of the great passage tomb mound.

The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath

Excavations at Knowth Volume 7: The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath

The complex of passage tombs at Knowth is dated c. 3200–2900 BC, and this volume deals with one of the most significant aspects of the site. It presents a complete catalogue of the 390 recorded carved stones at Knowth, through descriptions, drawings and photographs.

Six main styles of art have been identified and these are discussed, together with the motifs and techniques employed. The Knowth carvings constitute c. 46% of all such art in Ireland, and the volume sets the Knowth art in the context of the other Irish carvings, those in western and northern Britain, and also the somewhat earlier art found on megalithic tombs in Atlantic Europe.

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Knowth Stone Age passage tomb

Stone K109 belongs to the kerb ring that defines the oval footprint of the Knowth passage tomb in the Boyne Valley. Carvings on the end stone of the eastern passage have been interpreted as a schematic map of the moon's surface, among the earliest attempts anywhere to record the appearance of the lunar maria. Other motifs on the site may relate to eclipses and to the interplay of sun and moon in Neolithic reckoning.

Iron Age people buried their dead near the mound and built a substantial ring-fort settlement beside it, reusing a site that already carried great prestige. Later medieval farmers enclosed the summit within a grange, leaving traces still visible from the air.

The eastern passage runs for about forty metres, the longest known megalithic passage in western Europe. It opens eastward into a cruciform chamber with three recesses and a corbelled stone roof of the kind also seen at Newgrange (eastern tomb at Knowth).

Twin passages at Knowth face broadly east and west. Older ideas that they targeted equinox sunrises and sunsets have given way to wider interpretations that allow both solar and lunar observation, and perhaps calendrical counting, among the motives of the builders.