Rock art, Shanacashel, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
Two carved slabs sit tucked against a field fence on the southern slope of Knocknamorrive hill, half-buried under furze, in the rough boggy ground east of the Caragh river in South Kerry.
A third stone was recorded here by a researcher named Cooke but has since vanished from the landscape, which gives even the surviving pair a slightly provisional quality, as though the site is slowly disappearing around its own edges.
The decoration on one of the slabs, measuring 1.3 metres by 0.5 metres, is concentrated at one end and centres on a cup-and-two penannular rings motif with a radial groove. Cup-and-ring marks are among the most widespread forms of prehistoric rock art in Atlantic Europe, consisting of a small round depression, the cup, encircled by one or more carved rings, sometimes open or incomplete, which is what penannular means. Here, the radial groove extending from the central cup is intersected by a curved groove, which in turn connects to a further cup-and-ring and a cupmark enclosed within an arc. The second slab has its own complications: it was moved to the field boundary during land clearance at some point in modern times and a large boulder was placed directly over its decorated surface. A linear groove visible at the southern end corresponds to markings recorded in an earlier survey drawing, confirming the carvings are still there, simply inaccessible. The site sits at around 80 metres above sea level in what is otherwise unremarkable rough pasture, and a gap of about four metres has been broken through the nearby boundary wall at some point, further rearranging the immediate setting of these very old stones.