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Wedge tomb in Esk East

Wedge tomb

What is recorded here

Half a kilometre west of another wedge tomb, a single 2.15-metre roofstone still bridges two leaning rows of chamber stones on a rocky spur above rough pasture. The backstone has slipped westward and smaller slabs scatter nearby, as if the mountain exhaled and shook the dead out of their narrow chamber. Whatever hands built that tilted box did it in darkness, under weather, on ground that has never stopped moving.
On a spur of rock, in E-facing rough mountain pasture. A wedge-shaped chamber (L 2.6m; Wth 1.35m at W end), aligned WNW-ESE. Two sidestones on each side lean to the N and support a single large roofstone (2.15m x 2.15m) which narrows slightly and slopes down towards the ESE end. The backstone leans to the W and is slightly out of position. Smaller slabs are scattered on the ground immediately to the NW. Another wedge tomb (KE102-071----) lies c. 500m to the W. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Kerry. Volume I: South-West Kerry' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 30 May 2011
Wedge tomb, dating to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (c. 2500–1000 BCE). Its construction reflects a regional megalithic tradition in upland areas of Ireland and Britain, often associated with funerary practices and communal ritual activity.

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What survives
Recorded monument

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