Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Inchincurka, Co. Cork

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Inchincurka, Co. Cork

A wedge tomb, at its most basic, is a Stone Age burial monument whose roofed gallery narrows from one end to the other, like a stone funnel set into the earth.

The example at Inchincurka, sitting in level pasture on the northern side of the Caha river basin, is a particularly compact specimen of the type, and what it lacks in scale it compensates for in clarity of form. The gallery runs just 2.8 metres in length, tapering from a width of 0.9 metres at its wider, western end down to a mere 0.25 metres at the eastern close. That opening faces west-northwest, which is consistent with the broader pattern seen across Irish wedge tombs, many of which are oriented toward the setting sun or the western arc of the sky.

The structure is covered by two roofstones and enclosed within a closely-set outer walling, the whole thing incorporated into a mound measuring 10.3 metres by 4 metres. At the western end, single slabs connect the outer walling to the gallery sides, creating a short facade, a deliberate architectural gesture that gives the entrance a framed, formal quality rather than a raw opening. The tomb was catalogued by de Valera and Ó Nualláin in 1982, appearing as entry number 42 in their survey. Wedge tombs are generally associated with the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age, roughly 2500 to 2000 BC, and are the most numerous megalithic tomb type in Ireland, yet individual examples in quiet river basins like this one rarely attract the attention given to more celebrated sites elsewhere in the country.

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