Seen & Found

slowburner

Not sure what the problem is.
Anyway, here are some more photos.

Thargor

Boards is a mess this evening, probably the reason, stunning find! Can you tell us the county or the province even?

slowburner

Thargor wrote: »

Boards is a mess this evening, probably the reason, stunning find! Can you tell us the county or the province even?

Yeah, Boards has had some problems over the past 24 hours.

The finds were made in Wicklow. I don't want to be much more precise than that...for obvious reasons and considering the background activities of certain people who have posted in this forum.
By the way, there was no option but to remove the finds from the site and record all available contextual information. Both the National Monuments Service and the National Museum have been notified.

pueblo

slowburner wrote: »

That adze is lovely, such a crisp edge too. What stone do you think it is? Could it be a basalt?

slowburner

pueblo wrote: »

That adze is lovely, such a crisp edge too. What stone do you think it is? Could it be a basalt?

It's dolerite as far as I know. The pale side has been leached by soil contact.
Yes, you're right, the condition is outstanding, especially given the depositional environment.

Fries-With-That

I know cursus type monuments are rare in Ireland but I would imagine there are far more than the few that have been identified thus far.

Please cast your eyes over this link and tell me if this fits the bill for a cursus,there are plenty of monuments in the area and looking at the old burial ground to the west of this cursus like marking there seems to be a track or path from the graveyard to this area.
It runs uphill from a north west to a south easterly direction.
I'm not sure on what size it is but it appears to be a fairly large.

Link http://binged.it/1VsEQ9B

slowburner

Fries-With-That wrote: »

I know cursus type monuments are rare in Ireland but I would imagine there are far more than the few that have been identified thus far.

Please cast your eyes over this link and tell me if this fits the bill for a cursus,there are plenty of monuments in the area and looking at the old burial ground to the west of this cursus like marking there seems to be a track or path from the graveyard to this area.
It runs uphill from a north west to a south easterly direction.
I'm not sure on what size it is but it appears to be a fairly large.

Link http://binged.it/1VsEQ9B

I'm afraid I don't think it is a cursus. It appears to be related to a now buried watercourse and a lane way from Kilnaneave house.
Otherwise, it could fit the bill. Very interesting area.

cfuserkildare

Hey Fries-With-That,


What is the very pronounced curve in the second field below the dry water-course?
It does not look like a natural stream-bend as it is too " Perfect " looking?


Any ideas?

Fries-With-That

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Hey Fries-With-That,


What is the very pronounced curve in the second field below the dry water-course?
It does not look like a natural stream-bend as it is too " Perfect " looking?


Any ideas?

It's one of the many ring forts in the area, take a look at the old osi maps for this area.

Fries-With-That

slowburner wrote: »

I'm afraid I don't think it is a cursus. It appears to be related to a now buried watercourse and a lane way from Kilnaneave house.
Otherwise, it could fit the bill. Very interesting area.

I see where you're coming from with that, but the path/roadway to the house is to the left of the marks and the stream still exists to the right of the marks.

Any thoughts on the graveyard, the fact that's its basically circular and the site of an old church makes me think the church was built on a older monument.

slowburner

Fries-With-That wrote: »

Any thoughts on the graveyard, the fact that's its basically circular and the site of an old church makes me think the church was built on a older monument.

That is very likely.

Going back to the double banked linear feature: the eastern bank was the original stream course, and the western bank was a field boundary/fence.
The field fence has been mostly ploughed out, and the course of the stream appears to have been diverted at some point upstream.
There are a number of other very interesting features in that area, some natural (probably palaeo channels) and some that might be worth a look on the ground. There is a lot to see there, but no cursus I'm afraid.
But thank you for searching, and don't give up! There is absolutely no doubt that there are more to be found.

Meteorite58

A spot I often stop and take a look at what has been eroded out since my last visit, shells and mostly oysters and have seen a few small bits of burnt material / fire remains as well. It is near to Banna beach , Co. Kerry .I have never seen mention of it and is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map. A Midden I am assuming. Would it be worth reporting it to the appropriate persons ( and who may I ask should I contact ) as it is becoming more eroded as time goes on, especially after the storms of last winter. Thanks.

slowburner

Meteorite58 wrote: »

A spot I often stop and take a look at what has been eroded out since my last visit, shells and mostly oysters and have seen a few small bits of burnt material / fire remains as well. It is near to Banna beach , Co. Kerry .I have never seen mention of it and is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map. A Midden I am assuming. Would it be worth reporting it to the appropriate persons ( and who may I ask should I contact ) as it is becoming more eroded as time goes on, especially after the storms of last winter. Thanks.

Well spotted!
Yes, it is without doubt a shell midden, and a very interesting one at that, with the concentration of oyster shells. You should notify the National Monuments Service and the duty officer at the National Museum in the first instance.
The details are in one of the stickies on the forum landing page.
Alternatively, pm me the details and I can do it on your behalf. I would also like to notify another group of archaeologists that have a specialised interest in eroded coastal sites.
Many thanks for sharing your find.

Meteorite58

Thanks slowburner, I will PM you with details tomorrow.

Bonedigger

I was strolling through a recently harvested tillage field a couple of days ago, and spotted this protruding through the soil surface:



Removing it from the soil, I was expecting to find a waste flint flake from the core reduction process (I've found dozens here in the past), but instead found a complete convex end scraper:




The distal end of the scraper showing abrupt retouch:




At only 26mm long, it has a prominent bulb of percussion which bears a bulbar scar, and has a dihedral platform which also has slight damage; the flake was most likely produced by hard-hammer percussion:



It has retouch along one lateral edge and partly along the the other lateral edge which also has some cortex still attached:








At a guess, I reckon it dates from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze age.

slowburner

Easily missed. Nice find.
I think you are probably right about EBA.

Wibbs

Fantastic find BD!

Bonedigger

I seem to be on a bit of a roll finding things lately!
I went for a walk with my dog down by the canal in Milltown, Co.Kildare last night, and parked my car at the 'Hanged Man's Bridge'. Standing on the bank close to the bridge, I peered into the water and to my surprise saw what looked like a complete clay pipe. It was sitting on the canal bed about a metre from the bank, and at quite a bit of a depth down too (I didn't have my camera so unfortunately couldn't take a pic. of it in situ). I didn't fancy getting myself wet, so I fetched my camera tripod from the car, and by extending two of its legs, used them chopstick-like to carefully retrieve the clay pipe from the water.

I took these images of the clay pipe this morning:







The pipe is almost complete with just the mouthpiece at the end of the stem missing; the remaining stem measures 70mm in length. There is an impressed cartouche on the bowl with a 'Crowned L' at its centre. From my earlier research into clay pipes (see post #257 in this Thread), I knew this was the trademark of Gouda in the Netherlands. Gouda clay pipes were considered of the highest quality, so it was not uncommon for Irish clay pipe manufacturers to impress this motif onto the bowls of their pipes. These clay pipes date from circa 1860 to 1880.

The 'Crowned L' motif of Gouda:



The 'Hanged Man's Bridge' is the very last humpback bridge on this particular branch of the canal. Technically this stretch of water is a feeder (the Milltown Feeder) with the waters coming directly from Pollardstown Fen to feed the Grand Canal system beyond. Just over the bridge is a pub and restaurant which was formerly known as the 'Hanged Man's Arch'; this building was formerly a post-chaise depot which was owned and run by the Grand Canal Company in the 18th and 19th Centuries. A post-chaise was a closed, four-wheeled horse-drawn coach used as a means of transporting both mail and passengers. Passengers arriving from Dublin would disembark at this depot where they could then hire a coach or horses before continuing on their journey.

Why the bridge and the nearby building were named the 'Hanged Man's' is a curious story. An excerpt from an article in the 'Leinster Leader' dated 1970 tells us the following:

"The beer cellar is part of a port-chaise depot owned by the canal company in the early 1800’s. The name of the beer cellar has a long history starting with a boatman who tended to the needs of passengers on the passage boats. From chaise house passengers hired horses and coaches to complete their journey. One such boatman was in love with a pretty girl named “Kate,” but she had another great admirer who also wished to marry her.
The boatman made a journey down south of Ireland, but he feared the loss of Kate to his rival during his absences. She vowed, however, that she loved him only and would marry him on his return. On his arrival at the chaise depot he found that Kate had become the wife of the second admirer. Broken-hearted, the boatman hanged himself from a trap-door above the main arch."

The image below shows the 'Hanged Man's Bridge' with what was the old post-chaise depot on the left (now a pub and restaurant). The white arrow on the far right of the image shows where the clay pipe was found:



I suppose with all the activity that has been going on in that area over the centuries, it's not surprising items like the clay pipe are there in the first place. That part of the canal doesn't get heavy traffic in the way of barges and boats, so the bed of the canal rarely gets disturbed a great deal; canoeists get in and out of their canoes at the black and white bollards quite a bit, and you may see some lads and lassies swimming there from time to time too, so it's quite remarkable the clay pipe had not been spotted and removed until now.

davycc

well saved BD, nice interesting story attached to it too.

Thargor

Bah, cycled past there a few weeks ago, I never find anything...

baaba maal

Great post BD- and good fishing skills too!

Dr Strange

Nice one! I like the story as well. Can I just ask, with something like this, what happens, do you record it's location and send it into the museum for assessment and afterwards get it back like the so-called mud-larks in London (the registered ones)?

Bonedigger

Dr Strange wrote: »

Nice one! I like the story as well. Can I just ask, with something like this, what happens, do you record it's location and send it into the museum for assessment and afterwards get it back like the so-called mud-larks in London (the registered ones)?

Thanks Dr Strange.
When you find any archaeological artefact, it should be reported to the Duty Officer in the National Museum of Ireland as soon as possible (technically you shouldn't leave it any longer than 96 hours). All archaeological artefacts found within the Republic are deemed property of the State, so no, you won't get it back. If you're lucky to find something of real significance, you may be entitled to a finder's reward, but that's generally up to the discretion of the Director of the NMI.

Meteorite58

Meteorite58 wrote: »

A spot I often stop and take a look at what has been eroded out since my last visit, shells and mostly oysters and have seen a few small bits of burnt material / fire remains as well. It is near to Banna beach , Co. Kerry .I have never seen mention of it and is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map. A Midden I am assuming. Would it be worth reporting it to the appropriate persons ( and who may I ask should I contact ) as it is becoming more eroded as time goes on, especially after the storms of last winter. Thanks.

Just to follow up got in touch with the National Monument Service and they have included the midden in their database, got an email from them saying they will do a field inspection in the future. Anyone ever in the vacinity here are the coordiates.

KE020-081--

JJayoo

Came across this bog oak. It was unearthed when some drains were dug. It appears to have numerous cut marks in it. Just wondering if these would have been done when the tree was originally chopped down

mocmo

Interesting, do you have any photos that are less close-up, just to give us a better sense of the size of the piece of wood and where the marks occur on it.

Hard to tell from a photo but at least one of the marks looks like that of a broad metal axe. Can you give us any more information on the find spot? Is it a bog? Was there just one piece of wood? Single pieces of worked wood are very commonly found in our bogs, however, they are almost always small pieces, like small branches, larger trunks (which this seems to be) are not so common and I wonder if there is other material present.

JJayoo

It is on boggy land in Sligo that is close to the Moy river. There are a number of large piece beside this one. I have been told that another longer piece has more marks in it. I will take a video later in the week.

There is also a large flat stone with 6 or 7 round smooth holes in it. This is about a mile away but I will stick a picture up.

Bonedigger

I spotted a circular feature on satellite imagery of the Curragh, Co.Kildare earlier today and think it may be a hitherto unknown/unrecorded ring-barrow or ring-ditch. The circular anomaly can be seen in this OSI satellite imagery (ORTHO 2005; the cursor marks the centre of the circular feature):
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,674522,714282,11,0

The black and white OSI satellite imagery (ORTHO 1995) shows this feature very clearly too.

This Bing satellite image shows a circular parch mark: http://binged.it/1NqWbgU

I've checked to see if this circular feature appears on the attached link which SB uploaded a while back, and it's not here either: http://nidarchaeosurvey.blogspot.ie/2015/02/the-curragh-co-kildare-over-30.html

Several surveys of the Curragh have been carried out in recent years and there's a chance this was already seen and just hasn't been officially recorded as yet (I hope not though!:)). I've sent an email to the National Monuments Service, so should hear back from them in due course.

If this is a ring-barrow/ring-ditch it is potentially very exciting for me personally because it may mean I've found a 'missing link' in relation to possible astronomical alignments I've been studying in that area of the Curragh. This potential ring-barrow/ring-ditch falls directly on a Summer solstice sunset alignment which I proposed in the Archaeoastronomy thread last June - see here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=95989613&postcount=133

The image of the Summer solstice sunset in post #133 above was taken less than 100 metres away from this circular feature which falls along the same solstice alignment. I've walked in this area many times over the years and have never noticed anything discernible on the ground, so it was most likely destroyed or ploughed away centuries ago.

slowburner

Looks very likely, especially given the context.
But, is it outside the grounds of the golf course and can a military purpose be ruled out?

Edit: it is outside the golf course grounds.

Bonedigger

slowburner wrote: »

Looks very likely, especially given the context.
But, is it outside the grounds of the golf course and can a military purpose be ruled out?

Edit: it is outside the golf course grounds.

I can't rule out a military purpose for this feature unfortunately, but it's approximately 30 metres in diameter and in that respect is similar in size to the recorded monuments in close proximity.