4 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



into by a complicated concentric figure. I have insufficient materials for 

 dividing the designs into incised and pocked ; I can assert incising only in 

 the case of the group of triangles on the top of the stone figured by 

 Fergusson.^ This, though incised, seems posterior to the rest of the 

 engraving, since it was placed on a part of the stone left free from the pocked 

 designs. In character it is analogous with Group iv of ISTew Grange. 



The greater part of the very varied series of figures at Lochcrew is to be 

 associated with Series ii of New Grange and Series ii of Dowth. Some at 

 least are shown by their position to have been engraved before the erection 

 of the earns. In Carn T I discovered a most elaborately engraved slab, 

 which can be seen only partially by peeping into the narrow crack between 

 two adjacent roofing-stones. The pattern upon it, so far as it can be seen at 

 all, is unique.- 



Also in Carn T I noticed traces of colour upon one of the roofing-stones. 

 This discovery is unique in Irish bronze-age art. The pattern consists of a 

 series of lozenges in a whitish colour, traced on a ground of dirty yellowish- 

 red ochre. Very likely the zig-zag was originally painted in some perishable 

 vegetable colour, which has faded, leaving, so to speak, a negative of the 

 original design. 



It may be possible, with a more exhaustive exploration, to distinguish 

 lightly pocked figures from others pocked more deeply, leading to Series lii 

 of New Grange. 



'D.—Sess Kilgr ee7i. 



The published illustration of this fine tumulus (p. 108, fig. 87) does not 

 give an adequate idea of either its structure or its ornamentation. The 

 latter is completely analogous to that of certain of the Lochcrew designs. 

 Thus, there is a group found at both places, consisting of two groups of con- 

 centric circles, with a smaller imperfect group between them (an example is 

 Lochcrew, Carn U, stone B^). There are also found two conjoined lozenges, 

 comparable to a similar figure at Castle Archdale Deerpark, which I have not 

 seen.* This latter monument is doubtless linked by its decoration to the 



' Rtide Stone Monuments, p. 217 ; also figured in Conwell, Tomh of Ollamh Fodhla, 

 p. 61, and Journal, Kilkenny Arch. See, New Series, vol. v, p. 384. 



- This observation, also made at New Grange, suggests that the earns and the tumuli 

 are secondary erections, set up in an ancient cemetery which originally consisted of 

 graves marked with ornamentally sculptured stelae : and that these were appropriated 

 by the builders of the tumuli, much as in later times Ogham pillars were utilized by the 

 builders of souterrains. There is still one stone with pocked spiral ornament lying 

 loose in a field near New Grange ; it may be the sole survivor of the cemetery in its 

 original form. — R A. S. M. 



^ Proceedings, Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. xxvii, p. 331, fig. 59. 



■■ Journal, Roy. Hist, and Arch. Assoc, of Ireland, ser. IV, vol. v, p. 547. 



