What is recorded here

Two stone panels lie one metre apart in wet Kerry pasture, their lower halves drowned in bog while their upper edges gleam with ancient rings and cups. The eastern panel bears a broadpicked circle and a deep cup, the western a finer traced border and a solid picked rectangle, as if two different hands worked the same outcrop at different times. Rain fills the hollows, erases the lines, then drains again to reveal them, keeping the art alive in the breathing ground.

Only the upper surfaces of two neighbouring decorated panels are exposed, the rest of their decorated surfaces being submerged in very wet boggy pasture. Only 1 meter apart, it is probable that the two panels form part of the same outcrop. The rock art on each of the two panels is distinct from the other, the most readily visible carving on the panel to E consisting of one cupmark and lines of picking (Wth. 0.02m) forming curvilinear shapes which decrease in size from NE to SW. The carving on the panel to W is characterised by a plastic style of carving, with narrower lines of picking (Wth. 0.005–0.01m) tracing the edges of the panel and its contoured shapes. An unusual motif on its upper surface consists of a solidly picked sub-rectangular area. The exposed portion of the E panel is triangular in plan, measuring c. 2m NE/SW along its long axis and up to 1m wide at NE. The full extent of the carving is not visible as part of the decorated surface is submerged in the wet boggy ground. The upper surface slopes upwards to SE and is inscribed with three prominent curvilinear motifs the visible portions of which form incomplete irregular shaped rings, the lower portions of the motifs being submerged. The upper surface is also inscribed with faintly visible lines of picking and a cupmark. At NE, the picked line (Wth. 2cm, D. 5mm) appears to form a sub-circular ring (diam. c. 0.5m) – the line running from below ground level at N up the surface past a NE/SW crack which bisects the upper surface, continuing roughly parallel to the crack for c. 0.3m before curving to ground level. Picking is intermittently visible where the rock surface meets the boggy ground and it may be that this line of picking forms a complete ring. The cupmark, located above the crack, is enclosed by both the line of picking and the crack. Faint lines of picking in this area may indicate that the surface was prepared before carving. Immediately to S, a second curving groove extends c. 0.2m up the upper surface where it meets 3 lines of picking: one very faint line running down from the upper portion of the surface, a second line running up the surface from below ground level and one line extending from the terminus of the NE/SW crack – the continuation of which slopes gently back to ground level. Further S again towards the S extent of the exposed surface, an irregular arch-like line of picking rises from and descends back into the boggy ground. On the 0.3m high vertical face of the panel’s SE side, two lightly picked sub-circular areas have diam.s of c. 0.05m. A boulder to SE of the panel does not appear to bear any rock art. A bank of cutaway bog, 0.75m high, is to E. Compiled by: Aoibheann Lambe Date of upload/revision: 3 December 2018

Likely dating to the Neolithic or Bronze Age, the rock art may have had ritual or territorial significance, possibly linked to landscape features or water. The partial submergence suggests environmental change over time, but its original use may have been related to seasonal or spiritual practices.

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