Knowth Kerbstone K34
Kerbstone K34 is one of the 127 kerbstones numbered in Professor George Eogan's record of the Knowth monument. It is located on the southern side of the great passage tomb mound.
Knowth Kerbstone K34 - Photo by Dessie McCarron.
Knowth Kerbstone K34 in the morning sunlight - Photo by Clare, OPW.
The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath
Description of Kerbstone 34
Main Face: Stage 1 comprises a number of motifs, which are lightly picked with a medium-sized point; the carvings at the top of the stone are very weathered. There are traces of four sets of two or three concentric circles across the middle of the stone. Above them to the right are two more sets of smaller concentric circles, and to the lower-right are two small, double concentric circles. There is a short zigzag below the main row of circles.
Stage 2 consists of a double spiral motif of four-and-a-half turns. This is picked with a heavier rounded point than the stage 1 carving, and the lines are wider and more deeply picked. Low down on the stone is a panel of lightly incised, vertical lines, with some short, incised zigzags. As there is no superimposition, it cannot be determined at what stage these were carved.
Top face: towards the outer edge of the top face there are patches of area-picking.
Excavations at Knowth Volume 7: The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath
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Knowth Kerbstone K34.
Knowth Stone Age passage tomb
K34 forms part of the ceremonial kerb documented during decades of excavation at Brú na Bóinne by Professor George Eogan and his team. Later seasons of excavation exposed eighteen smaller tombs clustered around the main mound, along with pottery, house foundations and flint tools from an earlier Neolithic phase of settlement in the area, perhaps dating to around 4000 BC.
Inside the eastern tomb, the carved granite basin in the right-hand recess is among the finest Neolithic artefacts in Ireland. The block is so massive that the chamber appears to have been constructed around the basin rather than the reverse.
Activity at Knowth did not end with the Neolithic builders. The mound remained important through the Bronze Age and Iron Age, and was reused in medieval times, showing how long the monument kept its place in the life and memory of the Boyne Valley.
Newgrange draws the largest crowds, yet Knowth is unmatched for the quantity and variety of its sculpture, the scale of the mound and the depth of its archaeological record, with occupation traces spanning from the Stone Age into recent centuries at the ancient site of Cnogba.