Knowth Kerbstone K27

Kerbstone K27 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.

Description of Kerbstone 27

Greywacke Stone.

The surface of the stone is damaged, particularly at the top-left, with consequent loss of some carving. There is no clear sequence or over-lying of carvings, but the small spiral near the centre of the stone is much more finely picked than the rest of the carvings and might be earlier. The rest of the motifs were created by picking the surface very sharply with a medium-sized, rounded point that created angular picking scars.

The main motif is a circle, which occupies most of the stone and encloses two smaller irregular circles and the little spiral. This is enclosed on the right by a series of four arcs. Below it to the left are two large, concentric semi-circles, and a straight line runs up from these towards the top-left of the stone. There are a number of dispersed pickmarks on the stone.

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

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Knowth Stone Age passage tomb

Among the surviving kerbstones at Knowth, K27 contributes to the largest open-air gallery of Neolithic art in western Europe. No other site preserves so much carved Neolithic stonework in one place. After conservation of the mound, visitors on guided tours can walk the full kerb circuit and see one of the greatest open-air collections of prehistoric art in Ireland.

Guided tours include the kerb circuit; the passages and chambers are not open to the public. The stones are numbered K1 to K127 following Professor George Eogan's excavation record, published in the Excavations at Knowth series by the Royal Irish Academy.

Professor George Eogan opened excavations at the Great Mound and its satellite tombs in 1962. Within five years the western passage and chamber had been found; work soon after revealed a second passage and an extraordinary body of carved stone that accounts for a large share of Neolithic art in western Europe.

Decorated kerbstones were first recognised in quantity when R. A. S. Macalister cut an exploratory trench in 1941 and recorded fifty-eight kerbstones, most of them carved. His publication foreshadowed the fuller catalogue assembled during George Eogan's long campaign of excavation.