What is recorded here

Three furnace bottoms still touch a closed well on the Ballybin slope, where copper, glass waste and alder charcoal date the work between 160 BC and AD 80. The heat may have smelted metal, tested tools or changed raw material into something that could be traded. A person standing beside that wet hollow would have seen smoke, sparks and the bright edge of making.

Located on a slight N-facing slope in a gently undulating landscape extending into a wet hollow at N. A geophysical survey (02R0051) by GBS Prospection of Area 22 ahead of a proposed N2 bypass for Ashbourne identified potential archaeological features in the vicinity of a rath (ME045-002----). Archaeological features were identified in testing (03E1327) by D. Bonner in 2003 and these were excavated from mid-April to mid-June 2004 within the road-take by L. McGowan (2009) under the same licence (excavations.ie 2004:1269). The testing and excavation revealed that many of the potential features were natural hollows but two waterholes or wells were excavated, while an industrial kiln and its associated pits was only partially excavated. An area with kilns or furnaces connected with metal production was situated c. 80m NE of rath (ME045-002----). Three furnace-bottoms extend into a closed well or waterhole from the S, W and N sides and represent three closely related phases of activity as they shared some fills. Copper and copper alloy material was recovered from the area as well as siliceous waste that might have been associated with glass production. The S feature (dims 1.82m x 0.65m; D 0.2m) had six fills and a sample from one produced a C14 date of 90 cal. BC to cal. AD 80. The second (dims c. 1.7m x 0.8m; D 0.2m) was at the W of the well and had four fills. Alder charcoal from the bottom of the third furnace (dims 1.6m x 0.75m; D 0.13m) extending NW of the well produced a C14 date of 160 cal. BC to cal. AD 70. (McGowan 2009, 17-20) The furnaces were dug into the fill of two intercut pits that may have served as a well or waterhole. The first steep-sided pit (diam. 2.2-2.3m; D 1.77m) has a small step on its E side and contained three major fills, each consisting of collapse with silting. A shallower pit (diam. 1.8-1.85m; D 1.14m) that was cut into it had four fills of sands, silts and clays. An animal bone from one of these produced a C14 date of 40 cal. BC to cal. AD 220. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 21 December 2021

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