Kerbatch Stone Circles — Senegambian Megaliths
Kerr Batch
Medieval Senegambian (750–1100 CE)·Senegambian Iron Age (Serer)·🇬🇲 Central River Division (Janijanbureh), Gambia
About
About Kerbatch Stone Circles — Senegambian Megaliths
Kerbatch (Kerr Batch) is the second Gambian UNESCO stone-circle nucleus (1226) with 9 circles (3–5 m Ø) and V-shaped laterite pillars up to 1.7 m. Largest circle (Kerr Batch Proper) Ø5 m with 10 pillars surrounding central mound with multiple shaft burials. Gallay 1980s excavation found iron spearheads and Sierra Leone pottery. Kerbatch shows deliberate spacing 20 m apart on laterite ridge above River Gambia floodplain 500 m away. Less visited than Wassu, intact bush setting.
Why it mattersBest preserved Kerbatch-type V-pillared circles demonstrating Senegambia mound-burial ritual.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why Kerbatch V-shape pillar profile unique
Theories
- 01Pillars as ancestral effigies
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.900–1000 CE
- Period
- Medieval Senegambian (750–1100 CE)
- Culture
- Senegambian Iron Age (Serer)
- Builders
- Senegambian circle builders
- Purpose
- Lineage burial grounds with sequential interments over centuries
- Abandoned
- c.1400 CE
- Rediscovered
- 1940s Dieterlen
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
900 CE
Circles erected
1965
Aubert survey
2006
UNESCO inscription 1226
On the ground
Structures & features
13.7546° N · 15.0681° W · 22 m · 3 mapped features
Kerbatch Main Circle (Ø5 m)
stone circle10-pillar circle with central shaft grave 2 m deep and iron grave goods scatter
13.7550° N · 15.0685° WNorthern Triplet Circles
stone circle3 small circles Ø3 m each 20 m N with shared burial mound
13.7560° N · 15.0670° WLaterite Quarry Ridge
quarryQuarry face 1 km NW with unfinished pillar blanks and iron wedge grooves
13.7540° N · 15.0700° W