Irish Farmer Stumbles on ‘Untouched’ Ancient Tomb

 

Newly Discovered Tomb, Dingle
Photo: National Monuments Service, Ireland

Recently, a farmer conducting routine land improvement work uncovered an “untouched” ancient tomb on the Dingle Peninsula on Ireland’s southwest coast. The County Kerry farmer stumbled on the structure after turning over a rock and spotting a stone-lined passageway underneath it. Human bone fragments and a stone which may have been smoothed by human hands were also uncovered at the site.

Growing up in Ireland in the fifties and sixties, it was not unusual to read local newspaper reports of archaeological discoveries by farmers draining the land or undertaking other work. In those days much of the work was done by hand before JCBs became common place. People like my father received a Government grant to drain a field which often entailed digging up large pieces of bog oak. Many years later he would receive another grant to plant the same field, effectively, putting the wood back again.

The structure appears to consist of one large chamber with a second chamber off it. Archaeologists from the National Monument Services and the National Museum visited the site after being alerted by the farmer. Experts say the grave is in its original state and contains human remains, making it a unique archaeological find. The site’s exact location has not been disclosed to ensure it remains undisturbed.

“It is very well built, and a lot of effort has gone into putting the large cap stone over it,” archaeologist Mícheál Ó Coileáin told the Times. “It’s not a stone that was just found in the ground. It seems to have some significance.”

Archaeologists from the National Monuments Service and the National Museum visited the site after being alerted by a farmer.
Photo: Courtesy RTE

Archaeologists say the tomb is "untouched" and that some of its unusual features, including a mysterious oval-shaped stone inside, indicate that it could be an early example of an ancient burial.

Bronze Age

The tomb appears to be a "cist" or chamber tomb, consisting of an underground stone-lined structure built to contain one or several burials and capped with a large stone. Typically, such burials date to the Bronze Age, commencing around 2500 B.C. Only the central part of the structure has been unearthed so far, so the exact layout of the structure remains uncertain. However, what has been seen so far appears different from other ancient tombs in the same area.

"Given its location, orientation and the existence of the large slab your initial thought is this is a Bronze Age tomb," Mícheál Ó Coileáin told RTE. "But the design of this particular tomb is not like any of the other Bronze Age burial sites we have here.”

Another possibility is that the structure may be a souterrain (underground chamber) associated with the early Christian period. The presence of several ring forts in the area supports this theory. Souterrains were used for storage or for shelter but further research will be required to establish who built this megalithic structure and when.

The newly discovered tomb seen from the south-west.
Photo: National Monuments Service, Ireland

Ancient Irish tombs

The Dingle Peninsula is home to several wedge tombs dating back to the early Bronze Age. There have been several impressive finds in mid-Kerry and the Tralee area in recent years, indicating much older habitation than previously thought.

Ireland has thousands of ancient monuments and tombs. The most famous is the passage tomb at Newgrange, beside the River Boyne, which is aligned so that the rising midwinter sun shines down its internal passage and illuminates a chamber deep within. Recent research found that one of the Bronze Age people buried inside the Newgrange tomb was the son of parents who were probably brother and sister - a practice not uncommon in ancient royalty.

Newgrange is one of many tombs in the area known as the Brú na Bóinne Neolithic cemetery, which is listed as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. Megalithic tombs are to be found throughout Ireland with concentrations in Co Sligo including Carrowmore and Carrowkeel cemeteries. Some megalithic tombs date from more than 5,000 years ago, making them older than both Stonehenge in England and the oldest pyramids in Egypt.

Conclusion

The Dingle stone structure is believed to be an ancient tomb, possibly dating from the Bronze Age, although this remains to be confirmed. The fact that it appears to be in its original state and contains human remains and a hand-worked stone, makes it a unique archaeological find. Further work will be required to establish the function of the structure, who built it and when.

For further information see:

https://www.livescience.com/ancient-chamber-tomb-untouched-in-ireland.html

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0416/1210287-tombs-kerry-dingle-peninsula/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ancient-tomb-discovered-by-farmer-on-dingle-peninsula-1.4539731