Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Let’s be honest, folks – there are a lot of bad things happening in the world right now … pretty much wherever you are, politics is a roaring dumpster fire of awfulness … we’ve got universities that protect plagiarists on their staff (I see you UCL!) … Keepers of Antiquities that believe private citizens can be ordered about like medieval serfs and claim that you’re an embezzler for expecting something so outlandish as being paid for undertaking work (waves at Maeve Sikora!) … and then there’s the pandemic … it’s all just so depressingly awful. But do you know what’s brilliant? Piggy Back Rides! Sure, they don’t solve any of the above problems, but they are great. That feeling of being carried about is reassuring and throws us back to memories or fantasies of happy, carefree childhoods. How could you improve on all the great things that are encapsulated in the simple joys of the piggy back ride? How about this: a piggy back ride through a great archaeological site! And that is exactly

The British Museum holds 10 items identified as coming from Co Carlow. The majority of these (10) are assigned to the Bronze Age. The most common object type represented are vases (3). The material types represented in this assemblage are Pottery (4), along with Stone, Bone, and Metal (2 each). < Table of Contents Neolithic/Bronze Age: Bone item Ballon Hill, tumulus pin 19201109.470 Bone pin fragment; looped head of pin; loop worn through; decorated http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=817987&partId=1 Neolithic/Bronze Age: Stone item Ballon Hill end scraper 19201109.140 Stone end scraper. http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1388469&partId=1 Neolithic (?)/Bronze Age (?)/Iron Age (?): Stone item Ardristan quarry, 2 miles from Ballon Hill bead 19201109.290 Stone bead (decorated). http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectI

Those of you following our Archaeology 360 video series will know that we first visited the early medieval site at Nendrum [ here ] and, rather predictably, followed it up with a visit to Mahee Castle [ here ], just a couple of hundred meters away. For the concluding part of this trilogy (for a trilogy it is!), we visited the slightly less well-known church site at Tullynakill, Co. Down.   Tullynakill, although not nearly as well known, is part of the Nendrum story as it took over the former's role of parish church by the late 15th century. While the standing structure is of this date, to a century later, the decorated stonework is all of 17th century manufacture.   This is not the first time the Chapples Minor have visited Tullynakill! We were last here in 2015 where I took photographs and they played hide-and-seek [ here ]. Indeed, the Chapples Minor declared that of all the sites we visited that day, it was the best, but mostly because of the hide-and-seek experience.