1993:009 - SHANMULLAGH/BALLYCULLEN, Armagh

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Armagh Site name: SHANMULLAGH/BALLYCULLEN

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number:

Author: Cormac Bourke, Ulster Museum, Belfast

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Other

ITM: E 684233m, N 843802m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.335967, -6.704763

A metalworker's scattered hoard of 9th-century AD date has been partly recovered in dredged spoil from the river Blackwater. A major recovery project, using a bulldozer loaned by Watercourse Management Division of DANI, was carried out in 1992 (Excavations 1992, 3). The bulldozing of thin layers of spread-out dredgings allowed searching of progressively deeper deposits. Some areas rendered inaccessible in 1992 by the necessary spoil heaps were bulldozed and searched in 1993.

Finds from this season include a gilt bronze mount and a small bronze fitting, consisting of an animal head and ring, and three shaped pieces of lead, perhaps weights.

Note: In an extension of the dredging monitoring programme, material from the ongoing dredging of the river Lagan, Belfast, was monitored at the Dargan Rd. landfill site, Belfast. It was concluded that the material has no potential for further archaeological investigation.