Rock art, Kealduff, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Rock art, Kealduff, Co. Kerry

On a stretch of mountain heath in Kealduff, County Kerry, a flat section of rock outcrop holds a small puzzle that has never quite been resolved.

The outcrop, measuring roughly 3.1 metres by 1.6 metres, carries what appears to be prehistoric rock art, the kind made by repeatedly striking stone against stone to produce shallow depressions, a technique known as pocking or cup-marking. At its northern end sits a single pocked flat disc, 23 centimetres across, smooth and deliberately circular. About 50 centimetres to the southeast, ten further pockmarks cluster together in what the archaeological record describes, with unusual candour, as a haphazard grouping. The contrast between the one carefully formed disc and the loose scatter beside it is what gives the site its quietly odd character.

The outcrop sits at around 150 metres elevation on a northeast-facing slope, among a concentration of exposed rock and boulders that is typical of the Iveragh Peninsula's upland terrain. The Behy River valley opens out to the northeast and east, giving the spot a wide prospect that may or may not have mattered to whoever made these marks. Rock art of this kind is generally attributed to the Neolithic or Bronze Age, though dating individual sites with confidence is notoriously difficult. The Kealduff example was catalogued by archaeologists Aidan O'Sullivan and John Sheehan in their 1996 survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press, which remains a foundational reference for the archaeology of south Kerry. The site is noted as not having been physically located in subsequent fieldwork, which means its precise position on the ground remains unconfirmed.

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