I think that I'd rarely seen something more beutiful. And I think this is one of the most beautiful monuments I have seen in 2018. It's touching, moving, breathtaking.
Within a cillín at Knappaghmanagh there's this astounding grave slab. Knappaghmanagh means "Hill of the Monks". This stone slab, with a roughly trapezoidal shape, is incised with amazing figures. In the centre of the slab a human figure is depicted. He looks like a baby. The figure has an oval head with something on the top. It might be a hat or the representation of his hair. His body is round, two concentric circles, with the inner one divided in four sectors by a cross. Each sector has a tiny hollow. And the figure has two vertical lines to represent his legs. Right under his neck depart two arms, bent at the elbow with the hands raised. In the bottom-left corner of the slab there's a diamond divided into eight triangles, which measures 20 centimetres across. In the bottom-right corner is a cross measuring 9 x 11.5 centimetres. Two hollows with the diameter of 3 centimetres are on either sides of the human figure.
The slab is 93 centimetres long at the base, 34 centimetres long at the top, each side is about 65 centimetres long, and is 8 centimetres thick.
The Irish term cillín indicates a burial site mainly used in the past centuries for stillborn and unbaptized infants. The presence of such a figure on a slab in such a site is very touching and exciting at the same time.
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