County: Armagh Site name: MULLYNURE, Armagh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 12:104 Licence number: —
Author: Declan Hurl, EHS
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 687702m, N 847222m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.366097, -6.650427
A hoard of 13th-century silver coins was discovered in a field off the Loughgall Road, in Mullynure townland, Armagh City, by a detectorist. A follow-up excavation was undertaken in an attempt to locate the find spot and provide an archaeological context for the find.
The field was roughly triangular and sloping from the road to a substantial drainage ditch. Two trenches, 3m x 4m and 3m x 3m, were opened up in the general area of the stated location of the coins. Trench 1 contained loamy and sandy clays, 0.4–0.7m thick, containing a mixture of artefacts including medieval, post-medieval and modern ceramics, animal bones and modern glass. They overlay boulder clay, which tapered out downslope to expose the underlying limestone. The soil in Trench 2, near the drainage ditch, was more mixed, with spreads of pink clay and sand appearing between the layers of coarse clay that lay directly on the bedrock. The artefacts from this trench consisted largely of modern ceramics, glass and plastic. No significant features were uncovered, and much of the soil appears to have been recently deposited, the coins probably having been imported with it.
5–33 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA
