Kiltullagh Hill
Kiltullagh Hill ( Irish Cill Tulach ) is a small limestone hill about six kilometers as the crow flies southeast of Ballyhaunis , on the border of Counties Mayo and Roscommon in Ireland , on which Iron Age and early Christian finds were made.
First finds
In 1991, while working on the hill, archaeological laypeople found human remains. The four people were buried between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Burial finds from this period are extremely rare in Ireland. Most of the bones come from broken skulls. A similar finding comes from Raffin, County Meath . These findings, made by Raffin near a menhir , point to unusual rituals.
In 1994, on a small menhir, a flat layer of corpse burn and a male burial were found, which belong to the transition from the Iron Age to the early Christian period in the 5th century. The menhir consists of a 1.5 m high and 20 cm thick plate. On one narrow side, equidistant from one another, there are three rectangular, about 4 cm deep, pointed holes. According to local tradition, these are blast holes. However, the excavation revealed that there is a fourth identical hole well below ground level. It is therefore to be assumed that the holes were cut before the menhir was erected. This would currently be unique to Irish menhirs.
The pit of the burial was surrounded by stones that may originally have supported a layer of planks. The slipping of one of the legs concluded that the grave had not been filled with earth. The skeleton of the man who died between the ages of 45 and 60 was found to be 1.67 m tall. The skeleton provided evidence of both degeneration of the cervical vertebrae and trauma to the thigh muscles of the left leg.
Excavation of the Ring Barrow
The mound was archaeologically examined from 1996 to 2000 by the University of Manchester and Queen's University of Belfast . In 1996 a small ring barrow about 11.0 m in diameter was partially excavated. The barrow consists of a 0.5 m deep ring trench and the inner hill, which consists of limestone blocks mixed with individual larger boulders. It was covered with an outer layer of limestone and gravel with a flat topsoil and grass. The tracks of the moat were made visible and a depression was discovered on the barrow. The central tomb was disrupted and consisted of a pit containing the numerous bones of a number of people. At the edge of the ditch there was a shallow cremation pit.
Barrows were built in Ireland from the Middle Neolithic to the end of the Iron Age. They cover stone boxes , Bronze Age cremations or Iron Age burials. In the east of Ireland the tumuli have been leveled or rebuilt in great numbers.
It seems that Kiltullagh Hill with its remaining menhir (two more can be seen in older photos) forms a small burial ground from the late Iron Age or early Christian period.
annotation
literature
- C. Mount: New light on burial practice. In: Archeology Ireland 29, 1994, pp. 27-28.
Web links
- Database of Irish Excavations: Kiltullagh Hill (1996)
- Database of Irish Excavations: Kiltullagh Hill (1998)
Coordinates: 53 ° 43 ′ N , 8 ° 43 ′ W