series of stone cairns extending for three miles along the
Slieve-na-Callighe Hills. These cairns conceal chamber-tombs. The cairns
themselves are roughly circular, and the largest have a circle of
upright blocks round the base. The chambers are built of upright slabs
and are roofed by corbelling. Cairn H covered a corridor leading to a
chamber and opening off on each side into a side-chamber, the whole
group thus being cruciform. In these chambers were found human remains
and objects of flint, bone, earthenware, amber, glass, bronze, and iron.
Cairn L had a central corridor from which opened off seven chambers in a
very irregular fashion. Cairn T consisted of a corridor leading to a
fine octagonal chamber with small chambers off it on three sides.

The chief interest of these tombs lies in the remarkable designs
engraved on some of the stones of the passages and chambers. They are
fairly deeply cut with a rather sharp implement, probably a metal
chisel. They are arranged in the most arbitrary way on the stones and
are often crowded together in masses. There is no attempt to depict
scenes of any kind, nor is there, indeed, any example of animal life. In
fact, the designs seem to be purely ornamental. The most frequent
elements of design are cup-shaped hollows, concentric circles or ovals,
star-shaped figures, circles with emanating rays, spirals, chevrons,
reticulated figures, parallel straight or curved lines. There seems to
be no clue as to the meaning of these designs. They may have been merely
ornamental, though this is hardly likely.

At New Grange, near Drogheda, there is a similar series of tumuli, one
of which has become famous (Fig. 8). It consists of a huge mound of
stones 280 feet in diameter surrounded by a circle of upright blocks.
Access to the corridor is gained from the south-east side. This corridor
leads to a chamber with three divisions, so that corridor and chambers