What is recorded here

Rock art in Letter West stands in rocky Kerry pasture beside a small drystone enclosure, marking one of the region's oldest visible human claims to the landscape. A single cup-and-ring motif is picked into the sandstone, its incomplete ring suggesting haste, uncertainty or the simple limits of the tool and stone. The boulder faces the Behy River Valley, as if the marker were made to be seen from a distance rather than hidden in the bog.

An earthfast sandstone boulder in rocky boggy pasture is inscribed with a single cup-and-ring motif on the SE end of its upper surface (measuring - at N: 1.55m, S: 0.8m, E: 1.25m W: 1.5m). The cup-and-ring motif (0.7m W of the edge at E, 0.65m above the S edge) is irregular in form, having a sub-circular cupmark (diam. 0.05m, D. 1mm) enclosed by a ring (diam. 0.12m, D. 1mm) which is composed of a series of pickmarks (diam. 3mm, D. 1mm) which are closely picked at W and S where the ring is readily traceable and loosely picked at N and E. The upper surface of this boulder slopes upwards (from a height of 0.6m at its S end to 0.8m at its N end) to NE where it has commanding views down the Behy River Valley beyond Cromane and Castlemaine Harbour to the Dingle Peninsula. A small drystone enclosure (diam.: c. 2.5m, H: c.1m) to SW is separated from the decorated boulder by a 0.7m long low wall formed of two boulders. The SW side of this enclosure is formed by the vertical face of a large conspicuous boulder which is squarish in plan (having sides c. 3m long) with an upper surface partly overlain with peat. Compiled by: Aoibheann Lambe Date of upload/revision: 12 November 2018

Likely dating to the Neolithic or Bronze Age, the cup-and-ring motif may have held ritual or symbolic significance, possibly linked to territorial marking, astronomical observation, or spiritual beliefs. Such motifs are often associated with wider ceremonial landscapes in prehistoric Britain.

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