Altar Wedge Tomb
Southwest Ireland | County Cork
Altar Wedge Tomb - built from local slabs, this wedge shaped tomb is one of a dozen in the Mizen peninsula. It was first erected at the end of the Stone Age, around 3,000 to 2,000 BC, with its entrance deliberately lined up with the distant Mizen Peak. Archaeologists recently uncovered some burnt human bone which they radiocarbon dates to about 2,000 BC and believe that the tomb continued to be used as a sacred site in the centuries that followed. Shallow pits, probably with food offerings, were dug into the chamber floor in the later Bronze Age - between 1,250 and 550 BC - and Celtic Iron Age people filled a pit with sea shells and fish bones sometime between 124 and 224 AD. Whale bones were also found from this period. The ritual use of the site ended with the arrival of Christianity, but it was briefly resumed during 18th century when the tomb was used as an altar by priests who were forbidden by law to say mass in a church.
- OPENING HOURS AND TICKETS :
- Freely accessible
- CAR PARK :
- Roadside
Photos from Altar Wedge Tomb
