AR01055_EMAP_Gazetteer_of_Sites_4-2_10.pdf - The Heritage ...

Offaly
Over 5,000 artefacts have been recovered from the various excavations throughout the
monastery. Approximately 4,000 of these have been uncovered during the various excavation
seasons at the ‘New Graveyard’ and included iron objects (e.g. knives, rings, pins, fishhooks),
iron weapons (an axe-head, a sword pommel, and an armour piercing arrow-head) and
bronze objects (e.g. wire, loop-headed pin, tweezers, needle, pins, buckle, and off-cuts) as
well as a copper-alloy sewing needle case. High status metals were also recovered (e.g. a
fragmentary crucible with a speck of gold, and a silver ingot). Glass and enamel artefacts
were also discovered (e.g. blue glass beads, a green glass bead, a yellow glass bead,
fragments of a blue glass bracelet, and a blue enamel bracelet fragment). Imported material
was present in the form of sherds of E ware, fragments of green porphyry, pieces of jet, and
Hiberno-Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon coins.
The evidence demonstrates that small-scale bone-, antler-, lignite-, glass-, and fine metalworking
were carried out within the settlement areas, although large-scale iron-working was
more confined to the west of the site (King 2009, 345). Crucibles, tuyères, mould fragments
and slag indicate metalworking; spindle whorls indicate textile production; and off-cuts and
shavings of bone and antler suggest bone-working and comb manufacture. Evidence for
copper-alloy-working has been identified in at least two areas of the ‘New Graveyard’ in the
form of a hearth, crucibles, moulds, a cache of scrap metal objects and two fragments of
guage bronze wire (King 2009, 342-43). Some of the crucibles may have been used for glassworking
as at least two droplets of green glass could indicate its manufacture in the area of
the ‘New Graveyard’ (King 2009, 344).
Although extensive evidence for both the smelting and smithing of iron has been identified in
the form of lumps of slag, furnace bottoms and furnace material, the excavations have only
yet uncovered one definite early medieval smelting furnace; that beside St. Ciaran’s National
School (Ó Floinn and King 1998, 130-31). The most substantial evidence for ironworking was
uncovered within the monastic enclosure on the site of the Visitor Centre in the form of
furnace waste, iron slag, and túyere fragments (Manning 1989:078, 1990:096) and to its
immediate northwest (King 2002:1565, 2003:1535) where an extensive quantity of dumped
ironworking material was located during the construction of a waste-water treatment system.
The monastery at Clonmacnoise also obviously supported a large number of masons and
stone-cutters attested by the manufacture of over 700 carved stone cross-slabs, at least six
high crosses and the various churches and round tower.
Evidence for fishing at Clonmacnoise is demonstrated by stone net sinkers, iron fish hooks,
fish scales and also perhaps eleven dug-out wooden boats found close to the submerged
ninth century bridge (King 2009, 338). The mammal bone evidence from Clonmacnoise has
been published, at least in summary form (Soderberg 2004; McCormick and Murray 2007,
209-217; King 2009, 336-38). In common with Viking Dublin, the age-slaughter pattern of the
cattle at Clonmacnoise was dominated by older animals, indicating that the site for the most
part was a consumer settlement, provisioned by outside producers and not by its own herds.
The evidence for quern-stones and a large mill-stone – re-used as the base for the ‘North
Cross’, - as well as reaping hooks, bill hooks, two corn-drying kilns, a possible silo and millrace
finally indicate extensive tillage activity at Clonmacnoise.
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