What is recorded here

A fractured boulder in Drom East, County Kerry, still displays five cup-and-ring motifs despite heavy lichen and a waterlogged gap marking its violent separation from the parent rock. The panel sits slightly lower and apart, preserving radial grooves and a truncated double ring that human hands cut before the stone split. Its rough eastern edges hint at later quarrying, while the hidden basin and distant picked line suggest a busy place where shaping, marking and taking all shared the same surface.

Rock art is inscribed on the upper surface of a rock (max 0.58m E–W x 1.3m N–S, H: 0.4m) which originally formed part of a large earth-fast boulder or outcrop (c.3m N–S x 1.5m E–W, H: 0.5m) before splitting away from the parent rock, its current position at a slight remove (c.0.2m) from where it was originally located, its upper surface now lower (c.0.2m) than the rest of the parent rock surface. The gap between the south end of the split rock and the rest of the rock surface is waterlogged and over 0.5m deep. The rock art, difficult to see due to heavy lichen encrustation, includes c.five cup-and-ring motifs, two of which have SW running radial grooves, one of these a cup-and-two ring motif (diam. 0.13m) whose second ring is truncated by the panel edge on the long side (at east) close to the parent rock. A small squarish cup-and-ring (diam 0.06m) is located towards the N extent of the decorated surface whose surface tapers to a point at N. The decorated surface is widest at S, a natural looking basin (0.1m E–W x 0.16n N–S) at its SW corner. The sides at E are rougher than the smooth and weathered upper surfaces, these surfaces possibly rough as a result of quarrying. A low-lying earth-fast rock directly adjacent to the rock art at N does not bear any readily visible rock art, some indentations in a linear formation towards its SW end possibly traces of a picked line. Compiled by: Aoibheann Lambe Date of upload/revision: 8 March 2022

Likely dating to the Neolithic or Bronze Age, the rock art may represent symbolic or ritual markings associated with early farming communities or spiritual practices. Its meaning remains undeciphered, but such motifs are often linked to territorial markers, ceremonial use, or ancestral beliefs.

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