Megalithic tomb - passage tomb

The National Monuments Service's description

Knowth cemetery, Tomb 6. This tomb is located c. 13m W of the great mound, Tomb 1C, and is c. 20m SW of the entrance to the W passage in that mound. It is also c. 12m N of Tomb 5. This is the remains of a kerbed mound, of which only three contiguous kerbstones at SE with some mound material consisting of redeposited boulder clay (max. H 0.4m) attached to their inner sides remained. However, the sockets of orthostats representing a cruciform passage tomb(L 8m plus E-W; span 4m N-S) opening at E were also recorded. The right-hand recess (int. dims 2m N-S; c. 1m E-W) is the largest and contained the remains of several individuals with portion of a ring, a pendant and a flint. This recess had the cremated remains of three adults and three juveniles as well as unburned remains of one adult and one juvenile, while the left-hand recess had cremated remains from one adult and one juvenile (Buckley et al. 2017, 307--08). Large sherds of a Grooved ware vessel were also in this recess. The deposit was overlain by two intrusive inhumations from the first millennium AD (Eogan 2012, 48-51). Three samples from the right-hand recess produce a tight date range of 3080-2920 cal. BC, and it may be one of the later tombs if the deposits are primary, which is not certain (Shulting et al. 2017, 353-4). The orthostats are now marked in concrete and the mound is partially reconstructed. (Eogan 1974, 24-30, Site 9, 73-80; 1984, 41-5, 312, Site 6; 1986, 68-9; Eogan and Roche 1997, 211)

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Meath' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 10 July 2007
Revised: 16 September 2020

See the attached plans:
_1 Cemetery plan from Knowth 6, Fig. 2:1
_2 Tomb plan from Knowth 1, Fig. 20

References

Eogan, G. 1986 Knowth and the passage-tombs of Ireland. London. Thames and Hudson.

Eogan, G. 1984 Excavations at Knowth 1. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy.

Eogan, G. 1974 Report on the excavations of some passage graves, unprotected inhumation burials and a settlement site at Knowth, Co Meath. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 74C, 11 – 112.

Eogan, G. and Roche, H. 1997 Excavations at Knowth 2. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy Monographs in Archaeology.

Schulting, R., Bronk Ramsey, C., Reider, P, Eogan, G., Cleary, K., Cooney, G. and A. Sheridan 2017 Dating the Human Remains at Knowth, in Eogan 2017, 331-85.