same time. Not long after it was built, the building was filled with thousands of stones, to a height of nearly 3 metres. This stone cairn was flat-topped and split into wedges, resembling a spoked wheel when seen from above. There is some evidence that the stones came from an older monument in the area, perhaps a passage tomb. The building was then deliberately burnt down before being covered in a mound of earth. It was made up of many soil types, suggesting that soil was brought from surrounding areas. There is archaeological evidence for similar repeated building and burning at Tara and Dún Ailinne. In the first or second century BC, a figure-of-eight structure was also built at the eastern site. It was similar to those at the western site and may have been built around the same time as the mound. The larger ring was in diameter, the smaller about . This figure-of-eight structure was then cleared away and replaced by another round wooden structure. It was double-walled, had a central hearth and an eastern entrance. Two graves were found just outside the entrance. This structure was in turn replaced by a ring-barrow: a round mound, usually raised over a burial, surrounded by a ditch and bank. Purpose It is believed that the creation of the mound was a ritual act, but its meaning is unclear and there are several theories. The timber building may have been built only as a temporary structure to be burned, or it may have briefly served as a temple before its ritual destruction. Scholars suggest that the event was a sacrificial offering to the gods and that the structure was symbolically given to the Otherworld by being ritually burned and buried. Dr Chris Lynn has likened it to the 'wicker man' rite allegedly carried out by the Gauls, in which a large wooden effigy is burned with a living sacrifice inside. It is thought that the huge outer bank and ditch was made to mark out the hilltop as a sacred space. It could also have been seen as a way of containing the power of the Otherworld within that space. Dr Richard Warner suggests that the mound was made to be a conduit between this world and the Otherworld. It may be an attempt to replicate an ancient burial mound (sídhe), which were believed to be portals to the Otherworld and