UCD News
The Magazine of University College Dublin
December 1996
E-mail: ucdnews@midir.ucd.ie
Searching in the stones
The Knockroe passage tomb in County Kilkenny is one of the lesser known of its kind, having really only been excavated since 1990. In that time it has become the main focus of the work of Dr Muiris O Suilleabháin from the Archaeology Department.
"It is a site which for some reason escaped the attentions of earlier archaeologists, yet it has several attributes which indicate that it is a special site indeed," says Dr O Suilleabháin, whose initial primary archaeological interest was in megalithic art. "From the art point of view it has about 30 decorated stones, and, like Newgrange and probably Knowth in the Boyne Valley, the face of the cairn flanking the eastern tomb was decorated with a frieze of quartz. Also, like Newgrange, it has an alignment related to the solstice on December 21, except that at Knockroe the light enters the chamber at sunset, rather than sunrise as at Newgrange."
The other aspect of Knockroe that makes it worth investigating is that until its discovery, the prior most southern site of its kind was at Baltinglass Hill in County Wicklow. And the fact that there are two tombs on the one site also marks it out as uncommon. "In plan, in fact, Knockroe is very similar to the tomb at Knowth."
Although four distinct kinds of megalithic tombs have been recorded in Ireland, passage tombs appear to have had special significance. They were always built where they could dominate significant areas of the landscape, often overlooking rivers, as in the Boyne Valley. The Knockroe site is situated beside the Lingaun River on the south-western edge of Kilkenny.
"There's deliberate placing for effect, and that's one of the things that indicates to me that the people who built them were quite sophisticated," says Muiris O Suilleabháin. "They had a strong sense of imagery and of symbolism."
It is one of the problems of the megalithic era that there is little to tell us what its peoples were like. Even their burial traditions were cataclysmic in that cremation was the norm. But they left a few enduring - and often puzzling - elements of their time in the construction and decoration of their tombs.
"The art itself may not at first seem to have a great deal of variety, but that's only until you get into the subtleties of the patterns. There is evidence of a development from simply carving spiral patterns on stones to the more 'plastic' idea of allowing the shape of a particular stone become an element in the carving."
They also seem to have placed a value on the use of their art for specific iconic purposes, such as the placement of an image that looks like a face at a very critical point in the entry to each burial chamber. "There is some kind of schematic phrase here that runs through passage graves of the time from all across Europe, especially in Brittany. We also know that they chose their stones carefully, both from the need to be able to carve on them easily and for their own individual significance . . . for instance, the main structural stones at Knockroe are split greywacke boulders, but the western tomb seems to have had a facade of sandstone blocks flanking the tomb entrance. This is, in fact, an impressive architectural feature for which no obvious parallel can be cited in the Irish passage tomb tradition."
In the western tomb, where two especially tall stones stand at the entrance to the inner compartment, one is uniquely of red sandstone which Dr O suilleabháin believes is there for a particular symbolic consideration.
That the passage tombs had a particular significance is also shown by the fact that when the celtic societies emerged in Ireland, it was to the early passage tombs that they attached particular interest. And, indeed, to other races also. "For instance, Newgrange is seen in mythology as the home of the great Tuatha de Dannan god Aengus. But when it was excavated, there was an enormous amount of later prehistoric material from a Roman background - expensive material, gold coins and things of that nature. And Tara, the great Irish royal site, started off as a passage tomb.
"There are other sites which also have something which transcends the immediate people who built them. In one way, I like to think of them as the ancient equivalents of cathedrals. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if some of these 'high-status' sites, of which there are several examples around Europe, have a spiritual tradition which retained a hold over the anima of people a thousand years later . . . perhaps they were something like a modern Lourdes or Rome?"
Muiris O Suilleabháin acknowledges that his interest in archaeology stemmed in large measure from the way he was exposed to it at UCD, and also from the fact that the discipline from the beginning presents one with problems to be solved . . . problems with the possibility of many answers.
"It's a credit to the people who were lecturing that they tended to present us with several views and place them one against the other. It was, for instance, Dr Seamas Caulfield's habit to get us to read the books of the people he disagreed with most, and then address the arguments. It was a great experience because it made us think . . . and probably for the first time realise that maybe there isn't any one right answer? That it's all really a question of interpretation? What that did teach me was that you have to try and get all the perspectives on any situation before you can attempt to arrive at the truth."
And so what is the truth about the megalithic people who built the Knockroe passage tomb? Were they dominating other peoples in the landscape, or did they merely want a special place for the resting of the remains of their ancestors? Or did the tomb mark a boundary between different tribal territories?
Questions with many, or as yet, no answers. But then, perhaps that's why the site, as the others of its kind, has, and will always, hold an enigmatic attraction for those who have succeeded their constructors. If the mystery was not there, maybe nobody would care.