Knowth Kerbstone K58
Kerbstone K58 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.
Knowth Kerbstone K58.
The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, Co. Meath
Description of Kerbstone 58
Most of the kerbstones are Greywacke but kerbsotne 58 is Lapilli tuff, avolcanic rock. R.A.S. Macalister presented an illustration of a serpentiform and a short, wavy line carved on the left of the front of this stone (Macalister 1943, fig. 8, 'kerbstone 22'), but no carving can now be identified.
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
K58 forms part of the ceremonial kerb documented during decades of excavation at Brú na Bóinne by Professor George Eogan and his team. 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.
The passage tombs of the Boyne were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth together represent one of the richest prehistoric landscapes in Europe, valued for their age, scale and megalithic art.
The central cairn is accompanied by eighteen satellite mounds. Knowth holds roughly a quarter of all recorded megalithic art in western Europe, with two major passages and decades of scientific excavation behind the story told today.
Knowth was raised more than five thousand years ago in the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, when established farming communities were shaping the Boyne Valley. Together with Newgrange and Dowth, it forms the heart of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage landscape.