page_title: Axial stone circle
section_title: Five-stone circles
hierarchical_section_title: Axial stone circle / Design and archaeology of axial and recumbent stone circles / Features specific the Irish axial stone circles / Five-stone circles
caption_attribution_description: English: Kealkill Stone Circle
context_page_description: An axial stone circle is a megalithic ring of stones of a particular design found in County Cork and County Kerry in southwest Ireland. Archaeologists have found it convenient to consider the axial five-stone circle and axial multiple-stone circle separately. The circle has an approximate axis of symmetry aligned in a generally northeast–southwest direction. The stone at the southwest side of the circle, rather than being an upright orthostat like all the rest, is a slab lying horizontally with its long thin edge along the circumference of the ring. Because it marks the axis of the circle it is called the axial stone.
  Constructed in the Bronze Age, axial stone circles have an odd number of stones with two stones placed on either side of where the axis crosses the northeast side of the ring. The pair of uprights is generally taller that any of the others and they frame what is sometimes regarded as the entrance, or portal, to the ring. For this reason these two stones are called portal stones.
context_section_description: Five-stone circles are small in size – the diameter may be only 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) – and they are somewhat elliptical being greater in length along the axis that across it. The recumbent effectively makes the ring a D shape rather than a circle. The grading in height is observed strictly from tall portal stones to a low axial. There is no central stone or cairn but associated cairns and menhirs in the vicinity are very common. These circles, unlike their larger cousins, tend to be clustered so they are visible from each other. Two five-stone circles have been excavated – Cashelkeelty (where there is also a multiple-stone circle) and Kealkill. The size of the five-stone circles is such that any sighting along the axis could not be precise and cannot be useful for astronomical purposes. Whereas multiple-stone circles tend to be located in low, coastal areas, five-stones are found on higher ground inland.
  When Kealkill five-stone circle was first excavated it was assumed that the large stone at the north (right of photograph) was the axial stone but it is now thought to be a portal stone and the axial is the rather insignificant one at the southwest (left of ring in photograph).
caption: Kealkill five-stone circle (axial stone on left)
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