Tuamaí trí na haoiseanna · Tombs through time

Ireland’s stones, 4000 to 1000 BC

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tombs older than the Great Pyramid

Ireland’s court, portal and passage tombs were all being built before Egypt’s Great Pyramid (c. 2560 BC). Tap any bar to see the evidence behind it.

Oldest first, but the order is approximate: the date ranges overlap (court and portal tombs overlap c. 3700–3500 BC).

best-dated range wider published span. A thicker bar means more monuments.

• The counts are worked out in your browser from this site’s monument data (data/sites.json and data/standing.json). That data comes from the National Monuments Service SMR (CC BY 4.0) and the Northern Ireland SMR via OpenDataNI (OGL v3).
• Some Republic of Ireland records are left out because their coordinates fall outside Ireland.
• Dates are given by type, not tomb by tomb. Most monuments have never been excavated or dated; each one is assumed to fall within its type’s published range. Sources: the National Monuments Service class scope notes and the radiocarbon studies named in each panel.
• Markers: Newgrange c. 3200 BC (OPW Heritage Ireland), Great Pyramid 2580–2560 BC (British Museum), Stonehenge sarsens c. 2500 BC (English Heritage).