Flat cemetery

The National Monuments Service's description

Modern houses located on site of flat cemetery possibly dating from the Bronze Age. Flat cemetery discovered in the late 1950s and described by the National Museum of Ireland as following; 'Human skeleton. Cartenstown td., Co. Westmeath. Found about 10 inches [0.25m] below the surface while digging in a garden. It lay, crouched on its right side, in a small, four-sided cist. The site is on top of a low esker. At its bottom, the grave measured 63 cm. long N-S and 48 cm. wide E-W. The side walls inclined inwards slightly so that the width immediately below the capstone was 34 cm. The cist was 52 cm. deep. The capstone measured 80 cm. long, 63 cm. wide and was 15 cm. thick. It had been propped on four small stones which rested on the angles of the cist. The cist was, thus, not completely sealed and some sand and earth had trickled in' (Lucas et. al. 1960, 29) (NMI Reg. No. 1958:132).
A second discovery of burials was discovered in this area in 1961 and was described by the National Museum of Ireland as following; 'Ten small fragments of a child's skeleton (unburned) from Cist C, the third of three short stone cists found in a gravel ridge here. For Cist B see JRSAI 90, 1960, 29; the first grave discovered on the site (Cist A) was destroyed before investigation. Cist C has been described in detail by E. Rynne in Riocht na Midhe 2, 1962, 33-6' (Lucas 1963, 124-5) (NMI Reg. No. 1961:135).
The flat cemetery was described in 1970 (Waddell 1970, 94, 134) as following; 'Three cists were found. At least two were short rectangular, one long axis N-S contained a crouched skeleton; the second, long axis approximately N-S with its side slabs one overlapping the other contained the skeletal remains of a child'.
An ASI field report from 1980 described the monument as following: ‘Cists. A modern house occupies the low rise where “cists” are marked in pen on OS map. No trace of any features of archaeological significance in the vicinity’ (ASI Field Report 21/08/1980).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien and Frank Coyne

Date of upload: 13 July 2018

References

Lucas, A. T. 1960 National Museum of Ireland - Archaeological acquisitions in the year 1958. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 90, 1-40.

Waddell, J. 1970 Irish Bronze Age cists, a survey. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 100, 91-139.

Lucas, A.T. 1963 National Museum of Ireland: Archaeological acquisitions in the year 1961. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 93, 115-33.