Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Rock art
Emper, County Westmeath, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Emper
- County
- Westmeath
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Coordinates
- 53.59984, -7.57231
- SMR number
- WM010-008002-
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
Historical maps covering this location
- 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
Situated on flat pasture land with ringfort (WM010-008----) marked on OS maps as ‘Rathduff’ containing a souterrain (WM010-008001-) decorated with a panel of rock art and Bronze Age flat cemetery (WM010-009----) in adjoining field to SE (Weir 1938, 146-7). This stone has been described by O’Reilly (2010, 79-80) as follows: ‘The stone from Rathduff, Emper, was reported by Hugh Weir in 1938. It is located in a souterrain (WM010-008001-) beneath a ringfort (WM010-008----) called Rathduff in the townland of the same name. This ringfort is on a private farm with no admittance to the public. The souterrain is accessed through an entrance on the north side of the ringfort interior. This leads to a well-constructed stone-built chamber with two passages leading away from it. Built into the souterrain wall on the right-hand side of the right passage is a long stone decorated with prehistoric rock art. The visible portion of the stone measures approximately 85 x 28cm. It is decorated with irregular linear grooves as well as a cup-mark, four cup-and-ring motifs and a concentric circle motif. The concentric circle motif measures approximately 14cm in diameter and consists of two encircling rings and traces of a third. Unusually these rings enclose not a cup-mark, but a raised circular area approximately 5cm in diameter. Radiating out from the centre and cutting through the lower part of the concentric circles is a radial groove measuring 8cm long. Another interesting feature of the Rathduff rock art is the presence of a meandering linear 'tail' that emerges from the right side terminus of the second concentric ring and runs to the lower right edge of the stone, a distance of about 20cm.’
See attached photograph of rock art taken from Emper National School website at http://emperns.ie/index.php/photo-gallery/
Compiled by: Paul Walsh
Date of revised upload: 1 November 2016
References
O'Reilly, D. 2010 Some forgotten prehistoric rock art from the hill of Uisneach, Co. Westmeath. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 140, 75-82.
Weir, H. 1938 Fort at Emper, Co. Westmeath. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 68, 146-7.
Nearby in the register
- Ringfort - rathunder 1 mi
- Souterrainunder 1 mi
- Flat cemeteryunder 1 mi
- Ringfort - rathunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.