Audleystown

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Scheme of the dual court tomb

Audleystown is a Neolithic megalithic complex of the double court tomb type . The largely preserved complex is located near the south bank of Strangford Lough (lake), northeast of Walshetown in the townland of Audleystown ( Irish Baile Audley ) in County Down in Northern Ireland . Court Tombs are among the megalithic chamber tombs ( English chambered tombs ) of the British Isles . With around 400 specimens, they are found almost exclusively in Ulster in the north of Ireland or in Northern Ireland.

description

The double-court tomb ( English dual-court tomb ) was discovered in 1946 and excavated in 1952. The system is trapezoidal and about 27 m long. Its straight outer sides, preserved up to a height of one meter, are made of dry masonry . It has flat, crescent-shaped courtyards at both ends that lead to galleries with four chambers each one behind the other.

  • Glance into a gallery

  • Audleystown Court Cairn

  • View from the first towards the second gallery

  • Gallery as a double chamber

The complex has been stripped of its ceiling, which was designed as a cantilever vault . On the end stone of the 4th chamber you can see the spherical shape of the ceiling, the lowest stone layers of which are partially visible on the side walls of the chamber, which are intentionally inclined inwards.

The excavation showed that the oval atria had a paved surface. Burials were found in the two outer chambers of the northeast gallery and in all chambers of the southwest gallery. The fragmentary remains of 34 skeletons of all ages were partially burned. 15 fragments of Neolithic ceramics , various flint tools (a plano-convex knife, a spear and twelve arrowheads and spatulas ) were found.

literature

  • Alfred EP Collins, WRM Morton, James H. Scott: The Excavation of a Double Horned Cairn at Audleystown, Co. Down. In: Ulster Journal of Archeology. 3rd Series, Vol. 17, 1954, pp. 7-56, JSTOR 20567428 .
  • Alfred EP Collins: Further Work at Audleystown Long Cairn, Co. Down. In: Ulster Journal of Archeology. 3rd Series, Vol. 22, 1959, pp. 21-27, JSTOR 20567523 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.ballydugan.com/ancientsites.htm (status 02/2007)

Web links

Coordinates: 54 ° 22 ′ 34.9 "  N , 5 ° 35 ′ 49.8"  W.