Ever for the reason that discovery of a stone dolmen on the jap shore of Cork Harbor in southern Eire a few years in the past, archaeological opinion has been divided over the precise nature of the Carraig á Mhaistin stone. New analysis now appears to show that it’s a Stone Age tomb, as many specialists have at all times believed.

In response to the Irish Examiner, Connemara-based archaeologist Michael Gibbons claims that his analysis has uncovered conclusive proof relating to the age and goal of the monument.  He maintains that it’s now doable to confidently determine the Carraig á Mhaistin stone at Rostellan, also referred to as the Rostellan dolmen, as a megalithic tomb. It had been generally prompt that it was an 18th-century folly, a purely decorative backyard constructing serving no helpful goal.

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A detailed up of the Rostellan dolmen, Carraig á Mhaistin, which has been not too long ago recognized as a Neolithic inter-tidal tomb. (Howard Goldbaum / CC BY NC 4.0)

Carraig á Mhaistin Origin: A Lengthy-Standing Debate

Historian and creator Kieran McCarthy has touched upon the talk relating to the provenance of the Rostellan dolmen in his e book The Little Ebook of Cork Harbour. An excerpt from the e book printed within the Cork Independent in 2019 defined that the dolmen standing in Rostellan, on the jap finish of Cork Harbor, is just like portal tombs, however it’s troublesome to categorically determine it as such.

A portal tomb is a single-chamber megalithic tomb. It marks a burial web site in a really distinctive means, with two or extra upright megaliths supporting a big flat horizontal capstone or ‘desk’ at an angle.

The Cork Harbor monument is comprised of three upright stones topped by a capstone, which had as soon as fallen however was later re-erected. At excessive tide, the location will get submerged, and it’s troublesome to succeed in it throughout the mudflats. A better route is thru the adjoining Rostellan wooden. The wooden was planted as a part of the previous property of Rostellan Home, inbuilt 1721 by William O’Brien (1694-1777) the fourth Earl of Inchiquin.

The Carraig á Mhaistin stone has been generally recognized as a folly as a result of the property has a folly within the form of a citadel tower close by, named Siddons Tower after the Welsh-born actress Sarah Siddons. In response to the Heritage Daily, the folly was constructed by Murrough O’Brien, the primary Marquess of Thomond, within the late 18th-century. This led to the suggestion that the Carraig á Mhaistin stone was one other of the Marquess’s follies.

The Siddons Tower folly, now in ruins, is positioned close to the Carraig á Mhaistin dolmen, contributing to the cairn’s misidentification. (Public Domain)

This uncertainty over the monument’s age has meant that it missed out on its due place within the survey of megalithic tombs of Eire performed by Professor Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin over 40 years in the past. In response to the Irish Examiner, Gibbons said, “At the moment, it was prompt that it may have [been] a folly or sort of decorative construction commissioned by native gentry on the close by Rostellan Fortress property, and courting from the nineteenth century.”

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New Proof for the Megalithic Tomb Principle

Gibbons mentioned that his current subject journey to the location has led to the invention that the small chamber on the tomb stands on the western finish of a cairn, which is 25 meters (82 ft) lengthy and 4.5 meters (14.7 ft) large. That is fairly conclusive, as portal and court docket tombs “sometimes have intact lengthy cairns that are each meant to supply structural help to the chamber itself, and to boost visible presence within the panorama,” the Irish Examiner quotes him as saying.

He added that the cairn is partially submerged in “estuarine mud”, and a considerable portion will possible be uncovered under the floor. Though it isn’t identified when rising sea ranges submerged the world, for the final 2,000 years the ocean ranges on this a part of the harbor are believed to have been secure.

Regardless of its disputed provenance, some guidebooks have listed the Carraig á Mhaistin dolmen as Eire’s solely inter-tidal portal tomb. Whereas Gibbons agrees with them that the dolmen is certainly an inter-tidal megalithic tomb, he maintains there are in reality two such tombs in Eire. The one different identified inter-tidal portal tomb is at “the Lag” on the river Ilen, between Skibbereen and Baltimore in West Cork.

Curiously, portal tombs are sometimes identified regionally as “Diarmuid and Gráinne’s mattress”, in reference to the Irish folktale, “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne”. The story tells of a love triangle between the nice warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, the attractive princess Gráinne, and her paramour Diarmuid Ua Duibhne.

Gibbons’s analysis ought to give the Rostellan dolmen its rightful place among the many megalithic tombs of Eire. As a Neolithic tomb, it holds far better archaeological worth than as an 18th-century folly – an architectural extravagance of no specific use.

Prime picture: New analysis helped determine Carraig á Mhaistin, the Rostellan dolmen, extra definitively as a Stone Age megalithic tomb.         Supply: Howard Goldbaum / CC BY NC 4.0

By Sahir Pandey