County: Mayo Site name: BEHY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Professor R. de Valera, Department of Archaeology, U.C.D.
Site type: Megalithic tomb - court tomb
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 504958m, N 840015m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.300047, -9.460165
Excavations were carried out on this site in 1963 and 1964 revealing a long coffin-shaped cairn with dry-walled kerb and a full court of similar construction opening onto a two-chambered gallery with transepts. In 1969 a section four metres wide was cut through the cairn behind the chamber. The main purpose was to expose the ground surface under the cairn and to obtain samples for pollen analysis and soil study. Work by the Department of Botany, U.C.D. under Fr. Moore, on samples obtained in the 1963-64 season produced valuable preliminary results indicating two periods of forest clearance, and the samples obtained in 1969, both within and outside the cairn, are at present being examined in an attempt to correlate the vegetational sequence with the tomb.
