The remnants of a bronze age tomb once thought to have been destroyed and lost to history have been discovered in County Kerry on the Atlantic coast of Ireland.

The tomb, known locally as Altóir na Gréine – the sun altar – stood for approximately 4,000 years on a hill outside the village of Ballyferriter on the Dingle peninsula before vanishing in the mid-19th century.

Georgiana Chatterton, an English aristocrat and traveller, had visited the site and sketched the monument in 1838, but 14 years later an antiquarian named Richard Hitchcock reported that it had been broken up and carried away, presumably for building purposes.

The tomb raiders, it turns out, were not so thorough.