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Pit containing early medieval bone and antler working waste uncovered in archaeological test-excavations (06E0306) by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil in a former walled garden known as the 'Deanery Orchard', now a park and carpark, 40m SE of St Canice's Cathedral (KK019-026029-) (Gittins 2004, 272-3; Ó Drisceoil 2006, unpublished; 2009, 273-5). The Deanery Orchard is depicted as a large open area on John Rocque’s 1758 map of Kilkenny, which in the 19th century was divided into three enclosures by stone walls. Before it was the orchard for the Deanery (KK019-026033-) on the opposite (W) side of Coach Road (built 1690), it formed part of the plot of the manse house (KK019-026106-) for the Precentor of the cathedral chapter in the Cathedral Close. In the early medieval period it occupied the S side of the precinct of the ecclesiastical settlement of Cill Chainnigh. The round tower (KK019-026175-) is the only remaining upstanding building from this period of the site's history but a souterrain (KK019-026227-) and a section of the bank and fosse of the ecclesiastical enclosure (KK019-026231-) have been found on the Deanery Orchard site (Ó Drisceoil 2018, 118). Human burials that underlay the round tower (KK019-026175-) have been radiocarbon dated to the 10th, and 11th/mid-12th centuries and burials (KK019-026234-) excavated (09E0457) to the E of the 13th-century chancel of the cathedral on Church Lane were dated by radiocarbon to the mid-7th – mid-10th century AD (Ó Drisceoil 2018, 118). The excavated pit was oval in plan (dims. 1.6m E-W x 0.9m N-S; D 0.7m) and cut into the natural gravel subsoil and the levelled inner bank of the ecclesiastical enclosure (KK019-026231-) within the Deanery Orchard site (Gittins 2004, 272-3; Ó Drisceoil 2006, unpublished; 2009, 273-5). The pit contained bone off-cuts and cut antler tines and a complete set of antlers that was radiocarbon dated to AD 890-1020. It is one of many finds of bone and antler waste from around the Cathedral Close, representing an extensive bone and antler working industry within the early medieval ecclesiastical settlement between the 10th-12th century (Ó Drisceoil 2013, 86). The feature was preserved in situ.
See attached photograph.
Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil
Date of upload: 5 November 2020
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