Burial

The National Monuments Service's description

In 1852, a glass urn containing a cremation was reported to the Royal Irish Academy by a Mr. Perry, who stated that it had been, ‘found in a rath and protected by stones in a field of his near Stonyford, Co. Kilkenny’ (Bourke 1989, 56). A bronze disc mirror had been used as a lid for the urn and it was accompanied by a glass phial, also known as a lachrymatory or unguentarium (ibid. 56-7). They appear to have been within a stone-lined pit or cist. According to Bourke (1994, 164), the burial is, ‘typical of the Roman middle-class burial rite of the first and second centuries AD’, though the, ‘most likely date for the Stonyford burial is late first century’.

Independent research by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil (2013, 12) and Aideen Ireland (2014-15, 41) led both of them to conclude that this burial is most likely to have come from a barrow at Ballycoam (KK027-035----). This barrow was levelled in the 1990s (Rassmann et al. 2019, 353).

 

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

References

Ireland, A. M. 2014-15 The Stonyford burial: fact or fiction (part II). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 144-5, 27-44.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2013 Kilkenny and the Roman world. Old Kilkenny Review 65, 7-19.

Rassmann, K., Roman S., Hans-Ulrich, V., Ó Drisceoil, C. and Cahill Wilson, J. 2019  Following in the footsteps of Gerhard Bersu at Freestone Hill and Stonyford, Co. Kilkenny. New contributions from magnetic surveys. In Grunwald, S., Banffy, E., Gramsch, A., Hofmann, K.P. and Rasbach, G. (eds), Digging Bersu. Ein europaischer Archaologe. Breicht der Romisch-Germanischen Komission, Band 100, 335-366.

Bourke, E. 1989 Stoneyford: a first-century Roman burial from Ireland. Archaeology Ireland 3, no. 2, 56-7.

Bourke, E. 1994 Glass Vessels of the First Nine Centuries AD in Ireland. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 124, 163-209.