Ashleypark Burial Mound | |
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Native name Irish: Dumha Pháirc Ashley | |
Type | passage tomb |
Location | Ashleypark, Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland |
Coordinates | 52°56′02″N 8°11′20″W / 52.933888°N 8.188852°W |
Elevation | 89 m (292 ft) |
Height | 5 m (16 ft) |
Built | c. 3350 BC |
Official name | Ashleypark Burial Mound (Cist) |
Reference no. | 573 |
Ashleypark Burial Mound is a passage tomb and National Monument in the townland of Ashleypark, County Tipperary, Ireland.[1][2]
Ashleypark Burial Mound is located 2.1 km (1.3 mi) west of Ardcroney, 1 km north of Ashleypark House and Lake Ourna.
Ashleypark Burial Mound dates to the Neolithic: radiocarbon dating indicates a calendar date of c. 3350 BC for the burial in the chamber of an infant.[3] The inner end of the structure contained an adult and child, cattle bones,[4] a bone point, some chert flakes and Neolithic pottery, including sherds bearing channelled decoration. It lay until recently in an ancient oak forest.[2] The site was damaged by bulldozing in 1980.[5]
The mound is described as a Linkardstown-type cist but may be a simple passage grave. It consists of a round mound encircled by two low wide banks with internal ditches giving an overall diameter of 90 m (100 yd). The inner mound is 26 m (30 yd) in diameter with a cairn core covered in clay.[citation needed]
The megalith is trapezoidal in shape, 5m long and narrowing from 2.3m wide at the SE to 1.3 m at the NW (open) end. It was built around a limestone erratic which serves as a floorstone.[6]