Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Victoria Ginn & Stuart Rathbone (eds.). Oxbow books, Oxford, 2012. xv+301pp. ISBN 978-1-84217-464-7. £26.95 ( via Oxbow ) or £33.25 ( via Amazon ). [** If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Corrstown: A Coastal Community presents the results of the excavation and analysis of 76 Bronze Age structures excavated by Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd . during 2002 and 2003. Along with the well-publicised Bronze Age village, an Early Christian rath and rock-cut souterrain were investigated, together with the recovery of a small collection of Neolithic pottery. Chapter 1: Introduction sets the scene, outlining the development-led background from geophysical prospection, surface collection of artefacts and test-trenching. This led to further test-trenches and eventually, in October 2002, an excavation directed by Malachy Conway. What was initially regarded as a small prehistoric settlement and an Early Christian rath,...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you like this post, please consider re-sharing this post via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] Preface In Part I of this post, I outlined the background to the original project run in conjunction with Craughwell Community Council and FÁS to ‘clean-up’ and document the graveyards of Killora and Killogilleen. I also described a relatively coherent group of six vocational gravestones, belonging to blacksmiths, farmers, a shepherd and a carpenter. In this post I want to look at a number of other stones from the two graveyards. To be honest, there is little that binds them together other than the fact that I think that they are interesting and deserve to be better known.   Fig. 17. Overview of Cloonan stone. A resurrection scene In Killora graveyard there is a large (1.40m high x 1.85m wide), upstanding headstone with elaborate stepped and concave shoulde...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you like this post, please consider re-sharing this post via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] If you know me – either in real life or just through my activities online – you’ll be aware (possibly to the point of exasperation) that I’m obsessed with archaeology. You’ll probably also know that my main area of interest is Irish archaeology, especially prehistory, the Early Christian period, and post-Medieval gravestones – it’s just how I am! What fewer of you may know is that I’m also pretty obsessed with Egypt and Egyptology! What almost no one knows is that my family and I are the curators of a small collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts. I say curators, rather than owners, as we believe that we can never truly own such items – we are merely their custodians for the next generation. The collection was passed to me contained in a small Godfrey Phillips tobacco...