US academic joins clamour to save Tara 'amphitheatre'
THE national monument discovered on the route of the controversial M3 motorway should be fully preserved because of its unique size and character, a US academic has said.
Dr Ron Hicks, from Ball State University, in Indiana, joins several experts in saying that the 2,000-year-old ritual site at Lismullin forms part of an "archaeological landscape" around the Hill of Tara.
They say it should be preserved because of its large size and because it probably formed a "natural amphitheatre".
Archaeologists are excavating the structure amid fears that it may be washed away following the heavy rainfall.
The State's leading expert on Tara, Dr Conor Newman, from NUI Galway, is leading the excavation project.
The report, 'On the Significance of Lismullin', will be submitted to the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, and is also being sent to the European Commission, which is examining if the order to preserve the monument "by record" -- noting what is contained on the site before it is destroyed to make way for the road -- is in breach of EU law.
Delicate
The report from Dr Hicks says that rather than the monument being a delicate wooden "henge", the site sits in a natural hollow to form an ancient amphitheatre.
It also says the site is comparable to ceremonial enclosures found on the hilltop at Tara and other royal sites in Ireland, but is twice as large as any other.
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