The Cromleac of the Phantom Stones

This small and very beautiful dolmen is located in the chain of intact monuments directly across the road from the visitor centre, between Circle 3 and the Kissing Stone. The dolmen stands at the centre of a low flat mound some twelve meters in diameter and one meter high.

These low platforms or  tertres, are a feature of the early neolithic monuments in Brittany which the Carrowmore monuments appear to be deriveed from. The communal burial chamber is raised above the surrounding ground level. There are remains of many such neolithic platforms at Carrowmore.

When Petrie recorded the monument in 1837 there was a circle of 40 stones surrounding the platform; today there is only one stone remaining on the north side of the platform. Charles Elcock discovered that a zealous tenant, who had been clearing the field in 1840, had dug pits and tumbled the circle stones down, where they still lie buried. Elcock dubbed this monument the Cromleac of the Phantom Stones, or simply Phantom Stones. The tips of several stones can be seen when the grass is short.

Like all the other monuments at Carrowmore, this chamber would have been cleared by Walker before Petrie's visit in 1837. Wood-Martin's excavation report is given below. He found that the floor of the chamber was flagged. About 6 kg of cremated bone was found here.

Borlase: -

The circle had, when Colonel Wood-Martin visited it, been buried by the tenant, except one boulder.

On excavation, "near the surface were the unburnt remains of a wolf or dog, and of a large rodent. When the flagged floor was reached....... there were abundant traces of calcined remains, some imperfect bone pins and piercers; also a worked bone, seemingly the handle of some implement.

The animal bones, of dog or wolf, and rodent, were unburnt and unpetrified, and, from their colour, had evidently lain in clay, the humus still adhering to them. There was about 14 lbs. weight of small fragments of bone, lime-soaked, and therefore much increased in weight and density. Many of them were charred and blackened by fire." - Wood Martin.

With these remains was found a "large, roundish stone of white quartz, smooth, and weighing 14.5 ozs. It is 3 inches long, the same broad, and 1.75 inchs thick; also a smooth, black, cuneiform stone, with a thin coating of carbon, weighing 13.5 ozs., and measuring 2 11/16 inches long, 1 11/16 inch broad, and 5/8 of an inch thick.

lso a piece of rough white quartz of rudely triangular form, with some of its edges sharp; also some pieces of red sandstone in process of disintegration. There were also, in the general mass of small fragments, a few teeth of a young pig, bird bones, part of the valve of a shell, and half of the lower jaw of a rabbit." - Wood Martin.