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Knowth Kerbstone K95

Kerbstone K95 is one of the 127 kerbstones numbered in Professor George Eogan's record of the Knowth monument. It is located on the north-western side of the great passage tomb mound.

Knowth Kerbstone K95 with horizontal wavy parallel grooves carved across its weathered front face at the mound base. Knowth Kerbstone K95.

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

Book cover: The Megalithic Art of the Passage Tombs at Knowth, County Meath by George Eogan. Excavations at Knowth, Volume 7.

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

The complex of passage tombs at Knowth is dated c. 3200–2900 BC, and this volume deals with one of the most significant aspects of the site. It presents a complete catalogue of the 390 recorded carved stones at Knowth, through descriptions, drawings and photographs.

Six main styles of art have been identified and these are discussed, together with the motifs and techniques employed. The Knowth carvings constitute c. 46% of all such art in Ireland, and the volume sets the Knowth art in the context of the other Irish carvings, those in western and northern Britain, and also the somewhat earlier art found on megalithic tombs in Atlantic Europe.

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Knowth Stone Age passage tomb

Among the surviving kerbstones at Knowth, K95 contributes to the largest open-air gallery of Neolithic art in western Europe. 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.

The kerb carvings are abstract rather than figurative, yet they are far from random. Repeated circles, crescents and flowing lines point to a shared symbolic world among the Boyne Valley builders, one that modern visitors can still sense when walking the numbered stones around the mound.

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