Cist, Ballygrania, Co. Sligo

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Burial Sites

Cist, Ballygrania, Co. Sligo

On the east bank of the Unshin River in County Sligo, a septic tank now occupies the ground where a prehistoric burial once lay undisturbed on a ledge above a river scarp.

There is nothing to see at the site today, which makes the story of what was found there in 1970 all the more worth telling.

The grave came to light during construction work and was recorded by the National Museum of Ireland. It was a short cist, a type of small stone-lined pit burial associated broadly with the Bronze Age in Ireland, in which the body or remains were placed in a box-like chamber formed from upright slabs. This particular example was compact to the point of severity: just 0.71 metres long, between 0.25 and 0.33 metres wide, and 0.43 metres deep. Four thin limestone slabs formed the walls, two large flat stones made up the floor, and a single capstone sealed the top. The builders had taken care with the packing, filling the gap between the capstone and the side slabs with small stones and laying further stones across the capstone itself. Inside, the cremated bones of one adult had been heaped at the centre of the floor with a thin scatter extending to the edges. Among the remains were the teeth of a child, suggesting that two individuals, perhaps related, had been placed together in a space barely large enough to hold them. The find was published by Raftery in 1973 and later referenced by Waddell in 1990.

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