Rock art, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Rock art, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

On the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a flat-topped boulder sits quietly in the landscape with markings carved into its surface that are thousands of years old and still not fully understood.

The stone measures roughly 1.5 metres by 0.85 metres and stands about 0.8 metres high, modest enough that you could easily walk past it without a second glance. What makes it worth pausing over is what prehistoric hands worked into its upper face: two cupmarks, an annular ring, and a cup-and-two-rings motif. Cupmarks are exactly what they sound like, small rounded depressions ground or pecked into rock, while cup-and-ring marks add one or more concentric circles around a central cup. No one has settled on a definitive explanation for what these carvings meant to the people who made them, which is part of what makes them so quietly compelling.

The boulder lies approximately 70 metres north-northwest of a related rock art site in the same area, suggesting this was not a lone act of carving but part of a broader pattern of activity in the landscape. Rock art of this kind is generally associated with the later Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, a span of time running very roughly from around 4000 to 500 BC, though pinning individual carvings to specific centuries remains difficult without additional archaeological context. The eastern end of the decorated surface is partly overlain by peat, meaning the bog has crept up around and over part of the stone, both concealing and, in a sense, preserving it. Aidan O'Sullivan and John Sheehan documented the site as part of their archaeological survey of South Kerry, published by Cork University Press in 1996, which remains a key reference for the prehistoric and early medieval remains of the peninsula.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Rock art, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement