County: Kilkenny Site name: AR17 and 18, Ballykeoghan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: A032/14, E2503
Author: Graeme Laidlaw, Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, Brehon House, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny.
Site type: Linear features and hearth
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 657094m, N 621165m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.339124, -7.162168
The site was situated 4.5km south of Mullinavat and was discovered during test-trenching in advance of the proposed N9/N10 road project. Excavation commenced on 5 June for a period of three weeks.
The feature identified by the test-trenching on AR17 appeared after further investigation to be non-archaeological.
AR18 consisted of a shallow linear feature, roughly 9m long, 0.6m wide and between 0.3–0.4m deep, which was partially cut by one of two presumably contemporary ditches. The features were curvilinear in shape with square ends, steep sides and uneven bases. They were between 4m and 6m in length, 1.5m wide and c. 0.6m deep. The ditches formed a rough L-shaped feature, with a gap of roughly 1m between them. They had been backfilled with large amounts of stone. A small polished stone axe and two other polished stones were found within the fill of the large ditches. In one section of the northern ditch an amount of charcoal had been dumped into the open ditch. This may have been cleaned out of a small circular hearth located immediately north of the ditches. The hearth was a circular feature measuring 1.3m by 1m by 0.1m. The fill was charcoal rich and the natural subsoil was scorched in places along the edge of the feature.
