Bohonagh is an axial stone circle located 2.4 km east of Rosscarbery,

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The circle is thought to date from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. A boulder burial is sited nearby (grid ref: 308 368).

Features

The stone circle comprised 13 stones set in a circle with a diameter of . Four out of the 13 stones are missing and three were re-erected after excavation. Two portal stones are set radially on an east–west axis to the recumbent stones and are high. At just under , these stone are among the tallest of any Irish stone circle. The axis from these stones to the large axial-stone on the west side, points to sunset at the

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun appears directly above the equator, rather than to its north or south. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise directly east and set directly west. This occurs twice each year, arou ...

es. Many of the stones have quartz inclusions and many small pieces of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

are associated with the circle. A boulder burial (

dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

) is sited east of the circle, and its large capstone (weighing almost 20 tons) has seven or more small cup-marks on the upper surface. Two of the three small supporting stones are of

and a fourth has been uprooted. A nearby loose slab also features cup-marks. The complex, which included a wooden house (which had been excavated) is of Bronze Age date.

Excavations

In 1959 the site was excavated and a central pit containing charcoal and cremated bone was found.

References

Sources

* McNally, Kenneth (2006). "Ireland's Ancient Stones" (Belfast: Appletree Press).

External links

Irish Megaliths - Photographs of Bohonagh
Stone circles in Ireland Archaeological sites in County Cork Rosscarbery {{Ireland-archaeology-stub