Burial mound, Liscolman, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Burial Sites

Burial mound, Liscolman, Co. Wicklow

A stretch of farmland in County Wicklow, sitting on the south-western edge of a low ridge about 240 metres east of the Derreen River, conceals what may be an unrecognised burial mound, its outline invisible at ground level but legible from the air.

The site first came to attention through aerial imagery, where cropmarks, the faint discolouration of growing crops caused by buried features affecting soil moisture and depth, reveal a roughly circular area of approximately 30 metres in diameter, defined by traces of two narrow, concentric ditches, or fosses, visible to the south-south-east, south-west, and north-west. Within that enclosed area, a second, smaller circular feature of around 5 metres in diameter is apparent in the western sector. Neither has been excavated.

What makes the location particularly striking is not any single feature but the density of monuments crowded into a corridor of ground barely 140 metres long. Immediately to the south-south-west, at a distance of roughly 13 metres, lies a confirmed burial mound. About 20 metres to the north-north-east sits a second enclosure, and beyond that, a further 10 metres on, a standing stone. The newly identified circular cropmark feature was brought to archaeological attention by Mr Jean-Charles Caillere, who spotted it on Google Earth imagery dated July 2021; the same outline is also visible on MapGenie aerial photography from 2004 to 2006, suggesting the feature has been quietly present in the record for some time without formal notice. The concentric pattern of its ditches closely resembles that of the confirmed burial mound nearby, and the possibility that it represents a second, as yet unclassified burial monument of similar character has been raised. Sub-surface deposits are thought likely to survive intact beneath the present agricultural ground.

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