Corn drying kiln
On Tuesday night I stayed at the Cashel Lodge, owned and
operated by Tom and Brid O’Brien. After
telling Tom about my Middle Ages FFT Fellowship he suggested that I attend a
lecture by Rose Cleary on the archeological excavations on Burncourt Castle in
Co. Tipperary. He also informed me that there was an archeological excavation
happening in Cashel and that I should introduce myself to Joanne and Richard O’Brien
and ask if I could visit the site. This
excavation is being fund by a grant from the Royal Irish Academy and the work
is being carried out by volunteers from around the world over the next few
summers. This is one of the larger forts
that has been uncovered measuring 80 meters internally in diameter, where the typical
site in this area has measured 40 meters in diameter. There are 25 meters of banks and ditches as
well. Most ditches in the area had “ankle
breakers” dug in the bottom of the ditch, that an enemy would get their foot caught
in and presumably halting further progress of their attack. Thus
far they have discovered several ditches and a corn drying kiln used for drying
grain, possibly dating from the 8th and 9th century. A piece of iron was found inside the kiln, which
they will be able to test; this artifact may become a composite artifact. They
hope to find cereal grains to help give an accurate date which could help date
the whole fort or at least a portion of the site. One of the volunteers named Dez asked if I
had any knowledge in using the modern day shovel, the photo below shows my minuscule
contribution to the Cashel excavation.
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