Rock art, Derreennaclogh, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Rock art, Derreennaclogh, Co. Cork

In the rough pasture of Derreennaclogh, on a low plateau in County Cork, a fractured sandstone slab carries marks that were made thousands of years ago and, until relatively recently, were hidden entirely from view.

The stone was uncovered in comparatively modern times, according to local knowledge, which means that what prehistoric hands carved into its surface had been lying concealed, possibly under peat or soil, for much of its existence. That lateness of discovery lends the site an unusual quality: it has not been known and gradually forgotten, but rather rediscovered after a long absence.

The panel itself is a roughly rectangular sandstone outcrop, measuring about 3.05 metres north-northwest to south-southeast and 3.36 metres east-northeast to west-southwest, sitting flush with the ground on most sides but rising to about 55 centimetres at its western edge. Across a decorated surface of roughly 1.7 metres by 1 metre, at least five motifs are carved. Cup-and-ring marks, the most common form of prehistoric rock art in Atlantic Europe, consist of a circular depression, the cup, surrounded by one or more incised rings. Here, four such motifs are arranged in two pairs, one pair on each side of a natural fissure that runs east to west across the stone. The northern example is relatively modest in scale; the southern is somewhat larger, with a central cup nearly 14 centimetres across and 16 millimetres deep. A fifth, more complex motif survives in the south-eastern part of the panel: three small cupmarks arranged in a line and enclosed together within a ring that is rectangular rather than circular in plan, an unusual variant on the typical form. All the carvings are heavily weathered and faint, and the stone's surface is further complicated by natural striations running east to west and what may be glacially formed grooves running north to south. Despite all of this, the motifs remain traceable. A second rock art site lies approximately 6 metres to the west, and a possible further example sits around 33 metres to the east, suggesting this small plateau was a place of some significance to whoever chose to mark it.

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