What is recorded here

Flat cemetery in Danesfort is a Bronze Age burial ground in County Kilkenny, Ireland, where a pit circle and two ring ditches marked death before roads or memories. The largest ditch cut through limestone bedrock and held a cremation pit and hearth, suggesting people gathered there to burn, remember and release the dead. The smaller ditch remained empty, perhaps waiting for a body that never came or lost to time. Together they form a quiet sequence of loss, ritual and forgetting in a valley above a small stream.

In a valley overlooking a small stream. Excavated in 2007 in advance of the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford road improvement scheme (Licence no. E3616). A flat cemetery comprising a possible pit-circle and two ring-ditches. The possible pit-circle comprised a central pit (0.36m x 0.44m) surrounded by 6 larger pits (Wth up to 1m; D 0.8m) spaced 1.7-1.9m apart, none of which contained reliable evidence for supporting posts. These in turn were enclosed by a ring-ditch (diam. 10m) truncated at S by a post-medieval ditch. Early Bronze Age pottery was recovered from the central pit. The two ring-ditches were located c. 30m to the NE. The larger of the two (diam. 8.3m; D c. 0.5m) was cut into limestone bedrock and was filled with silty clays and sparse charcoal flecks. A cremation pit and a hearth were found within the interior. The smaller ring-ditch (diam. 5m) was V-shaped and was filled with silty clay deposits and had no internal features. Evidence of possible metalworking was found between the possible pit circle and the ring-ditches (KK023-156----). (Jennings 2009; 2010, 244-5, 919) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 2 December 2013

A flat cemetery of early medieval date, likely associated with a Christian burial tradition. Its location near a major medieval road route suggests potential significance in local settlement or trade networks.

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