Site Type: Passage Tomb
Location: Link to Bing Maps
Description:
The passage tomb is described on Archaeology.ie as follows;
"Carrowmore (P27). OS 14:15:4 (48.7 4-3). Shown, not named (1940). OD 100-200. 665 332. A circular kerb of large boulders, 23m in diameter, encloses a cruciform chamber. Wood-Martin's exploration of the chamber yielded a large quantity of material including burnt and unburnt human and animal bones, human teeth and cockle, oyster and periwinkle shells. Artifacts recovered include hammer-stones, a crystal clear quartz-spar about 2 ozs. in weight, fragments of a food-vessel, three fragments of a ring of white flint, some worked pieces of animal bone which included fragments of two pins and two sherds of a second vessel, one piece decorated (Wood-Martin 1885-6; 1888). Burenhult's excavation (Burenhult 1980a; 1984) also produced large quantities of burnt and unburnt human bones and unburnt animal bones. Among the artifacts recovered at this stage were fragments of ivory rings, fragments of antler pins - one a mushroom-headed example, a stone bead, two chalk balls, chert waste, pieces of flint tools and three sherds of pottery, perhaps Carrowkeel ware. An undisturbed cremation burial was found in a cist close to the inner circle at the NW. Three radiocarbon determinations from charcoal between and under the lowest layer of stones in the cairn yielded dates of respectively 3090± 60 b.c. (Lu-1698), 3050± 65 b.c. (Lu-1808) and 2990± 85 b.c. (Lu-1810) considered by the excavator to date the construction of the monument but it has since been pointed out that the dated samples refer to pre-cairn activity (Caulfield 1983, 108).
I came across this alignment in 2016 with the publication of Dr Frank Prendergast's paper 'Interpreting megalithic tomb orientations and siting within broader cultural contexts' Dr Prendergast uses a statistical analysis of all the passage tombs in Ireland to conclude that 24 of them have significant astronomical alignments.
Links to photographs;
Links for further information;
http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/carrowmore/c27.html
http://www.megalithomania.com/show/site/846/carrowmore_tomb_27_passage_tomb.htm
