Tateetra basement
The basements of Tateetra are an L- and a U-shaped basement in the townland of Tateetra ( Irish An Táite Íochtarach ) northwest of Dundalk south of the Castletown River in County Louth in Ireland . It is one of the few double basements in Ireland.
It was discovered and excavated in 2004 during drainage work. The basements discovered in the townlands of Balriggan, Carn More, Newtownbalregan and Tateetra during the construction of the "Dundalk Western Bypass" of the M1 motorway are located in County Louth, which is rich in basement and where 14 basements were excavated by 1998. In basement there is a distinction between "rock-cut", ( Releagh ), "earth-cut", "stone built" and "mixed" (usually a combination of "rock cut", "stone built" or "stone built") and " wooden “basement.
description
Both basements were entered via a central antechamber. The door facing west could be locked from the inside with double struts. The southern side of the entrance chamber contained the beginning of basement 1; the north side led to basement 2. The approximately 30 and 40 m long “stone built” basements by Tateetra are made of dry masonry . They contain the excavated part two chambers, four long corridors, two doors, a not uncommon in Louth case hole ( English trapdoor ), a stage, three hideouts, a pit, a wall niche and a vent. The walls protruding slightly in the upper area are made of slate stones . The basement was built by first digging the trenches for the galleries and chambers. The walls were inserted in sections, roofed over with cap stones and the whole structure covered with earth. No evidence of a related above-ground construction was found.
The western basement (1)
The northwest-southeast oriented corridor 1 is small and narrow and ends in an oval chamber and a drop-hole in the west. This forms the access to the also small, narrow passage 2, which branches off to the north. It has not been fully investigated because its approximately 8.0 m long end portion lies outside the excavation zone under a road. It seems to end up in a chamber in the north that has collapsed.
The eastern basement (2)
Aisles 3 and 4 are about 1.6 m wide and 2.0 m high and larger and wider than in basement 1. A door sill and posts in the east provide access to aisle 4, which runs north and ends with the ventilation opening. The west-east oriented corridor 3 was severely disturbed at the west end. Most of its length, approximately 8.0 meters, was filled with earth and a number of broken ceiling stones were found in the passage.
It is unknown whether the narrower width of aisles 1 and 2 represents a second, possibly earlier construction phase. The shared access indicates that both were used at the same time.
Marc Clinton mentions the rare presence of a double entrance to the basement of Garryntemple, County Tipperary . The two entrances are about 2.5 m apart. He doesn't even mention double basement in his 2001 book.
Finds
Small finds
The findings made during the excavation appear to be consistent with the general period of use of basement in Ireland, which ranges from the second half of the 1st millennium to the early part of the 2nd millennium AD. A copper alloy pin (from the end of the 11th to the middle of the 13th centuries) was found on the floor of Corridor 1 near the entrance. A pierced white pearl was found in the package above aisle 3. There are eight Irish basement beads made of amber , blue glass, horse tooth and cut stone from the last centuries of the 1st millennium AD.Ceramic fragments of a single pot have been found on the floor of aisle 2. The decorated pot has a "stamped" rosette and appears to be an example of the rough, unglazed ceramic known as basement ware . Basement ware dates from the 7th to 12th centuries, and the decoration suggests the end of the sequence.
Ornate stones
Two cross slabs were used as secondary capstones over aisle 4. One plate had five equal-armed crosses on five different sides of the stone, which is referred to as the altar column. The second slab was a large stone with a small Latin cross on the bottom. There is a theory (von O'Rahilly 1946; Warner 1980) that the use of cross stones in basement was intentional and should be understood as apotropaic . Although this possibility cannot be ruled out, it should be emphasized that none of the crosses on the plates were clearly visible at Tateetra. They were also not installed in important places (chamber, entrance). A stone with abstract geometric art from megalithic times was installed as the last capstone at the northern end of aisle 4 with the concealed decorated surface facing north. The weathered and chipped decoration consisted for the most part of incised diamond motifs.
The basement of Newtownbalregan and the basement of Farrandreg are nearby .
See also
literature
- Mark Clinton: The Souterrains of Ireland . Wordwell, Bray Co. Wicklow 2001, ISBN 1-869857-49-6
Web links