Brownshill Dolmen

The Browneshill - Dolmen (also Browne's Hill; Irish Cnoc an Bhrúnaigh ) is a Neolithic portal tomb, which was built in 3300-2900 BC. The dolmen is located in County Carlow in Ireland, three kilometers east of Carlow, close to the R726 ( road).

It has the largest capstone of all megalithic sites in the British Isles. The capstone is made of 100 tons of granite and is 4.7 m × 6.1 m tall, with a thickness of about two meters. The capstone rests in three-point support on the two portal stones and a capstone lying. The so-called door stone is still present and a further stone stands freely in front of the plant.

There are three theories about how this huge stone was placed in this position. In all of the capstone has been found on the spot and have not be brought in from further afield.

• The first theory is that the builders of the capstone not moving. You can individually have dug holes into which the three supporting stones were set and carried the earth from then on which lay the stone to cause the current appearance of dolmens.
• Second, the builder could have established the three supporting stones and then built an earth ramp on which the capstone was leveraged using timber in the position today.
• The third theory is that they have highly leveraged the edge of the capstone. The resulting cavity filled them with earth and stones, and built in this way successively under each of the three supporting stone.

Many dolmens were covered with an earth or stone hill. Of these, here were no traces.