EMAP_2012_Report_6_1.pdf (7.3 MB) - The Heritage Council

1995, 36). A collection of walrus ivory pins (including the butchered skull of a walrus) at
Essex Street West/Lower Exchange Street (Simpson 1999, 26) and walrus skull fragments at
Fishamble Street (Wallace 1987, 216) may indicate ivory-working in Scandinavian Dublin and
a piece of walrus ivory decorated on its outer surface by a series of incised concentric circles
and a central perforation was found at Cloghermore Cave (Connolly and Coyne 2005, 189). At
Inishkea North, the shoulder blade of a whale was found outside the door of a structure
(House C, Site 2) and bore numerous cut-marks suggesting its use as a chopping block
(Henry 1945, 136). A roughly oval whalebone disc with perforations was found in a nearby
structure (House A, Site 2) and two cut-ribs of whale were identified on either side of the
door of another structure (House A, Site, 3) (Henry 1952). A whalebone sword handle was
found at Collierstown (O’Hara 2009), a whalebone plaque was also recovered from the rural
Viking site at Cherrywood (Ó Néill 2006). A perforated whale tooth was also found at Knowth
Site M and at Lough Faughan Crannóg (Stout & Stout 2008, 64, Collins 1955); and part of the
vertebra of a whale was recorded at Downpatrick where it found a final use as a slab in an
early medieval pavement (Brannon 1988, 63).
5.4: Contexts of bone-, antler- and horn-working
As bone and antler are organic materials, Comber (2008, 94) has noted that it is difficult to
identify craft-working areas due to the relatively few known workshops or concentrations of
working debris (unfinished artefacts and waste) within early medieval settlements. She has
suggested that bone- or antler-working was not undertaken on a large-scale nor confined to
any particular designated areas within a settlement (ibid.). Much of the evidence for boneand
antler-working (waste and unfinished objects) was found within enclosure ditches at
Clonfad, Armagh and Roestown and Scandinavian Waterford or disposed in a well close to a
workshop area to the east of the monastic buildings at Clonmacnoise. At Raystown the
working of pig fibulae for needles largely took place in one area to the north of the cemetery
close to a number of souterrains while a cache of bone blanks was dumped in a disused
millrace distant from the main settlement (Seaver 2010, 35-36). Likewise sawn antler tines
were dumped within deposits in a disused mill race as was the case at the mill at Killoteran
(ibid, 36, Owen 2008, 75). The incomplete and finished bone and antler pins and composite
combs at Illaunloughan were recovered from a midden outside a hut (D) on the southwestern
side of the small island away from the ecclesiastical structures (Marshall and Walsh 2005,
149-51, 186-7). There is evidence that particular buildings and areas along streets in
Scandinavian Dublin (High Street & Christchurch Place) and Waterford (Peter Street) were
specialising in bone-working. These buildings in the latter site were close to the ramparts on
the periphery of the city and it appears that large quantities of antler and bone waste from
the habitation deposits may have been dumped within and outside the nearby enclosing
fosses (Hurley 1997e, 653). Comber (2008, 94) has suggested that the bone and antler may
have been retrieved from butchery areas or midden heaps within settlements but the actual
final working and completion of the bone or antler artefacts may have been undertaken away
from these unpleasant places. At Cahercommaun, Hencken (1938, 67-9) noted that most of
the evidence for comb-working and a range of bone and antler artefacts (spindle-whorls,
spear-heads, pins, points) were found in the northeast quadrant in ‘the part of the fort
occupied by its owners’ though most worked fragment of bone and antler and the primary
ironworking features were found in the southwest quadrant area described by the excavator
as ‘a poor area’.
5.5: Levels of bone-, antler- and horn-working
Evidence for bone and antler working has been found across a range of sites both
ecclesiastical and secular (Comber 2008, 95). With the exception of comb-making, boneworking
does not appear to have been a specialist activity requiring much expertise and
many people may have had the capacity to produce artefacts such as pig-fibula pins, beads
and needles on a subsistence basis. Quantifying how much of a craft this represents at any
one time is difficult as many of the sites have different periods of occupation. Likewise while
many bone objects were made on side others were clearly imported for example a bone
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