County: Louth Site name: MELL (2)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0430
Author: Thaddeus C. Breen, for Valerie J. Keeley, Ltd
Site type: Burial ground and Cremation pit
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 705773m, N 776562m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.727981, -6.397084
The site, which is 4km north-west of the town of Drogheda, was discovered during monitoring of topsoil-stripping for the Northern Motorway. A small dark spread was seen, which was cleaned back to reveal an oval ring-ditch. The site was excavated in July and August 2000.
Further cleaning back revealed a complex comprising an oval ring-ditch, a circular ring-ditch, a group of graves orientated east–west, a small burnt spread and another dark spread. The work concentrated on the graves and the burnt spread, as the construction schedule required that this area should be resolved first.
The cemetery comprised nine graves and two pits. Seven graves and one pit were arranged in a slightly staggered row. Two other graves and the second pit lay to the west of this. Bones were found in five of the graves; only three of these were reasonably complete skeletons, and in these the bones were very brittle. The graves had rounded ends. Most of them had a crude stone lining. The stones appeared to have been added after the graves had been partly filled. In one case, a third line of stones ran along the middle of the grave, over the skeleton, and in another the grave was completely filled with stones. A silver ornament was found in one of the graves, a few centimetres to the right of the point where the skull would have been. It was a small hook-shaped object, with one end decorated with an animal head and the other with a perforation and tang.
Immediately to the east of the graves was a triangular dished area 1m x 0.75m, containing ash, charcoal, burnt clay and small fragments of cremated bone. Post-holes were found on three sides, filled with similar material to the dished area. This may have been a cremation pyre associated with the ring-ditches.
13 Wainsfort Crescent, Templeogue, Dublin 6W
