Figure 20.6 The entrance stone at Newgrange.
Sketching is a good way to help your memory. Practise things like the entrance stone at Newgrange. Begin your sketch with the groove that marks the entrance, near the top centre of the stone. Draw the three spirals to the left, then the group of spirals to the right. Add in the wave pattern along the lower part of the stone, then fill in the lozenges and curves at each end. Write notes on your sketches pointing out the important features of the design.
Artists and Artworks
The works of art and construction that survive from the Stone Age are generally associated with places of importance to these first people. Little evidence of their language or everyday lives survives, but we can find the remains of the structures they built as places of ritual or to glorify their dead. The extra food that farming and communal work created allowed them the time to think out, plan and build the large structures that can still dominate their local landscape.
Burial Structures and Monuments
Dolmens
Dolmens are the simplest megalithic structures. They were identified as tombs because human remains from burials and cremations were found within them, along with some Stone Age artefacts. Stones at the
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Upright leg
back of the tombs are generally lower than those at the front. Some archaeologists believe that this suggests that capstones may have been dragged up an earthen ramp to rest on the upright stones. There are dramatic examples at Poulnabrone in the Burren, Co. Clare (Fig. 20.7), and at Kilcooley, Co. Donegal. There are 170 or so portal dolmens in Ireland.
Capstone
Figure 20.7 Poulnabrone portal dolmen in the Burren, Co. Clare.
Megalithic: Comes from the Greek words mega meaning ‘large’ and lithos meaning ‘stone’. Megalithic builders used large stones to build their tombs and monuments.
Dolmens: Between three and seven stone legs are used to support one or two large capstones in the construction of a dolmen. These are known as portal dolmens because the entrance can look like a doorway (from the Latin porta, meaning ‘gate’).
NEW APPRECIATING ART IRELAND AND ITS PLACE IN THE WIDER WORLD
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