Knowth Kerbstone K13

Kerbstone K13 is one of the 127 kerbstones numbered in Professor George Eogan's record of the Knowth monument. It is located on the south-eastern side of the great passage tomb mound.

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

Description of Kerbstone 13

Three stages of carving can be tentatively identified on this face. Stage 1: incised lines between many of the picked lines seem to precede them, but the full extent of the incised lines is difficult to determine because they are obscured by the picked motifs. Stage 2: the whole surface of the stone is covered with picked motifs, many executed with a rounded point of small to medium-size, but close inspection shows that different types of points were used, and it is not clear if these indicate various stages of carving.

The motifs include lozenges on the top-left, with two anti-clockwise spirals below them, one of which overlies one of the lozenges. The middle of the stone is occupied by a dense series of angular motifs, including zigzags and lozenges. There is a quartered lozenge low down, and two of the opposing triangles inside it are picked all over. To the right is a panel of zigzags, and above these are three tightly set, double, anti-clockwise spirals, two of which are conjoined to form a double S-spiral, with a very lightly picked double spiral immediately to the right and a single anti-clockwise example further right.

Above the spirals are some small serpentiforms, a large zigzag, and some small arcs opening downwards. Stage 3: a wide serpentiform motif is deeply picked with a round point along the right edge and partly across the bottom of the stone and clearly overlies a number of motifs in this area. A patch of pick-dressing under the middle spiral may also belong to this stage, but it is not so deeply picked.

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

Purchase at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. View or download at Digital Repository of Ireland.

Knowth Stone Age passage tomb

Stone K13 belongs to the kerb ring that defines the oval footprint of the Knowth passage tomb in the Boyne Valley. It stands on the south-eastern side of the Great Mound, a short distance along the kerb from the eastern passage entrance at K11, and forms part of the open-air gallery of carved stonework that surrounds the monument.

The panel on K13 was carved in at least three stages, with incised lines overlain by densely picked spirals, lozenges, zigzags and serpentiform motifs. An arrangement of diamond shapes on the stone has been read by some commentators as a highly stylised human face, though like much Knowth art the carving resists a single fixed interpretation.

In Martin Brennan's compass-based notation the stone is SE2, the second position on the south-eastern arc; Professor George Eogan's excavation record numbers it K13 (kerbstone numbering systems). It lies between the eastern passage entrance at K11 and the celebrated Sundial stone K15, in a stretch of the kerb that invites comparison from one panel to the next.

Few sites in Ireland preserve so much Neolithic art in a single kerb circuit, and K13 is among the stones that make a guided walk around the mound worthwhile. The numbered sequence from K1 to K127 is documented in the Excavations at Knowth monographs and illustrated throughout the kerbstone gallery on this site.