(ORDO NEWS) — The stone structure of Carraig-a-Mhaistin, discovered many years ago in the Irish harbor of Cork, has finally been identified by scientists as a megalithic dolmen. According to the Irish Examiner, experts were previously unsure if it was a prehistoric monument or a 19th-century “nonsense”.
A new study by archaeologist Michael Gibbons has shown that the monument is actually a megalithic dolmen. The monument also consists of a small chamber on the western side of the pyramid.
The man-made stone pile marking the burial mound measures 82 feet long and 15 feet wide. The pyramid of stones was not previously found, as it was under water.
Gibbons believes that the rest of the pyramid may be “partially buried in estuarine mud”.
It is not clear exactly when the sea level in the area rose, but it is believed that it has remained stable for the past 2,000 years.
There is another tomb with a tidal portal on the island.
In Irish folklore, portal tombs or dolmens were often known as Diarmuid and Greine Lodge, the final resting place of a fugitive couple who, legend has it, was pursued by Greine’s husband Fionn mac Cumhail.
Many of these were built close to the coast; however, due to the movement of plates in the Atlantic Ocean, most of them have not survived, including the only megalithic tomb of Sherkin Island in the town of Slievemore.
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