Ceremonial stone setting

The National Monuments Service's description

This feature was identified by O'Kelly (1982, 75-6) as an oval setting which was located 'east of the tomb entrance (ME019-045----) about 2.5m outside K97, the kerbstone immediately to the right of the entrance stone. It was covered by the quartz boulders of the collapse and when these were removed a low oval mound of water-rolled quartz pebbles, each about the size of a medium potato, was found and mixed through it were fragments of quarried quartz and rounded boulders of grey granite. There were 607 water-rolled quartz pebbles, 103 granite boulders and 612 fragments of quarried angular quartz. The total spread of the mound measures approximately 4m x 3.4m and it was about 50cm in height. Protruding through it were the tops of a setting of small thin slabs forming an oval 3m x 2m. The largest of the slabs, which stood in the northern arc of the oval, was roughly triangular in shape, having a basal length of 65cm and a height of 46cm, set with the apex upwards. It was 8cm in maximum thickness and was of soft friable mica-schist. Its western sloping edge had a horizontal slot 1cm wide and 12cm deep at a height of 18.5cm above the base. When the covering of quartz and granite pebbles was removed these standing slabs were found to form a border to a pavement partly cobbled and partly flagged. Lying as a cobble in the northwest quadrant was a highly polished piece of sandstone, 24cm in length, oval in cross section, 7.4cm x 4.5cm, and displaying a fractured surface at one end and a blunt polished point at the other - a phallus? It lay east-west, pointed end to the east. Two flint artefacts were found, a blade and what may be a fragment of a flint knife; the former was in a heap of pebbles and the other came from the pavement beaneath' (ibid. 75-6).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 12 November 2013

References

O'Kelly, M.J. 1982 Newgrange: archaeology, art and legend. London. Thames and Hudson.