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Burial in Cill Mhuirbhigh

Burial

What is recorded here

Cill Mhuirbhigh holds a tiny rectangular grave cut into bedrock, containing the skeleton of a neonate placed with its head west. The burial dates to 770-410 cal. BC, making it an Iron Age loss marked only by stone and memory. A linear boundary nearby may have fenced the area or simply crossed it, leaving the child exposed beneath open sky.
This burial (identified as F3047f) was found on the E side of a bedrock hollow (see GA110-039003-), at a spot where it had been quarried away to make a box-like rectangular grave (Wth 0.35m; D 0.23m). The grave contained the skeleton of a neonate, placed with its head at the W end. The burial was compacted and, despite some root damage, was relatively intact. There was no trace of any covering slab and no grave-goods were found. A radiocarbon date yielded a date of 770-410 cal. BC. A linear stone boundary uncovered running NE-SW across the hollow to the S of the burial may pre-date it or, alternatively, it may have been a fence that marked off the burial area (Cotter 2012, vol. 1, 329-30). (Ó Donnabháin 2012, vol. 2, 189-90, 196) Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 22 June 2020

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What survives
Recorded monument

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