House - early medieval

The National Monuments Service's description

This is medieval house 4, located on the E side of the great mound close to the entrance to Tomb 1C East and on the back-filled and wet lower fosse of the rath which had been levelled up with a layer of brown earth. This was the only area where organic material was preserved. The house was a rectangular area (dims 6.5m N-S; 3m plus E-W) with a rounded corner at SE and an in-turned entrance at E. The house is represented by fragments of walls on each side and it had a roughly cobbled floor with an underfloor stone-lined drain that exited beneath the E wall. There is a central hearth and an extensive spread of charcoal with carbonised grain, straw and wood suggesting that the house burned down, although 3 layers of habitation above it indicate that any fire wasn’t final. A layer of woven wattles outside the S wall could have been laid across the wet ditch at this point or might have originated in the wall of the house and fallen outwards. The whole or partial articulated remains of five sheep were recovered from this house, which may have become a repository for discarded carcases after it was no longer used for occupation (McCormick and Murray 2007, 43). When it was finally abandoned the house and much of the lower N and E sides of the mound were covered in a layer of stones (T 0.1-0.45m), which was disturbed by the construction of Souterrain 3.

The S wall of the house ran onto the S wall of the entrance passage to the tomb, and drystone walling was used to connect the two, which facilitated the use of the tomb as a souterrain. A rough cobbling was laid along the length of the passage, and the chamber was used for habitation as two hearths, four pits and habitation material bear witness. These features overlie or cut earlier pits that are also medieval. (Eogan 2012, 112-18)

True location: ITM (699654, 773453)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 26 November 2013
Amended: 17 September 2020

See the attached illustrations:
_1 Early medieval features, from Knowth 5, Fig. 4:1
_2 House plan, from Knowth 5, Fig. 4:17

References

Eogan, G. 2012 Excavations at Knowth 5: the archaeology of Knowth in the first and second millennia AD. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy.

McCormick, F. and Murray, E. 2007 Excavations at Knowth 3:Knowth and the Zooarchaeology of Early Christian Ireland. Dublin, Royal Irish Academy