Knowth Kerbstone K51

Kerbstone K51 is one of the 127 kerbstones numbered in Professor George Eogan's record of the Knowth monument. It is located on the south-western side of the great passage tomb mound.

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

Description of Kerbstone 51

Stage 1 comprises a central, finely picked, double anti-clockwise spiral of two-and-a-half turns. This is seems to be overlaid in Stage 2 by the central elements of a row of arcs that runs across the stone. Above these is a long, horizontal serpentiform, and above that a row of circles is picked just below the top edge of the stone. The four circles on the left are single and quite wide, and the three on the right are double.

There are also a number of penannular circles along the right edge, one of which links to a deeply picked, short, horizontal zigzag. Some further motifs may be noted under the row of penannular circles, including an oval, a possible spiral, and an irregular motif at the left end of the zigzag. These motifs are very lightly picked with a fine point, sometimes drawn along to make a short, sharp line, as are parts of the zigzag, and they might therefore belong to Stage 1, like the spiral. The majority of the motifs are picked with a medium-sized, rounded point.

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, K51 contributes to the largest open-air gallery of Neolithic art in western Europe. Medieval texts and local folklore associate Knowth with the royal cemetery of the Boyne and with ancestral powers of the land. The concentration of labour required to build Brú na Bóinne implies strong leadership and shared belief among Neolithic communities.

Later seasons of excavation exposed nineteen 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.