EMAP_2012_Report_6_1.pdf (7.3 MB) - The Heritage Council

North and appear to have been discarded when they split during the drilling of the central
perforations (Henry 1952, 172) and incompletely perforated stone spindle whorls were
recorded at Cahercommaun (Hencken 1938, 43-4). At Reask, a stone spindle-whorl was
apparently discarded or lost before use, as the marks of the boring tools in the hour-glass
perforation and the marks of the polisher were still evident (Fanning 1981, 125). Rotary
querns are commonly find and consisted of two roughly circular stones, the upper of which is
rotated atop the lower through inserting a wooden handle in the top stone. Larger stones
were used in mills and provided the same functions as their smaller, manual counterparts
(Comber 2008, 61). They were often made of materials such as granite which required
sourcing and transport over considerable distance. Some sites such as Lagore (Hencken
1950, 174), Moynagh Lough (Bradley 1982/83, 28; 1994/95, 160, 165), Lisnagun (O'Sullivan
et al, 52), Holywood (Proudfoot 1959, 105), Ballyegan (Byrne 1991, 28) and Knowth (Eogan
1977, 74) have produced evidence for unfinished quernstones.
Stone gaming boards have been noted at Movilla Abbey (Yates 1983, 62-3), Roestown
(O'Hara 2009b, 73), Lagore (Hencken 1950, 176-77)and Garryduff I (O'Kelly 1963, 88-89 &
91) and these most likely represent a common early medieval game known as hnefatafl
‘King’s table’ in Norse or fidchell in Irish. A second type of game known as merels was also
identified at Roestown and at Borris (Riddler and Trzaska-Nartowski 2010, 200-201). It can
be paralleled with an example from a ninth century horizon at Fishamble Street, Dublin
(O'Hara 2009b, 73). These incised stone boards were probably the belongings of the lower
classes with ornately-decorated carved examples such as the tenth century wooden board
game from Ballinderry I part of the material-culture of the lordly-classes (O'Hara 2009b, 72).
6.3: Contexts of stone-working
Very few early medieval sites have produced actual evidence for the sourcing and working of
stone. Raw stone was abundant and waste is often difficult to identify (Comber 2008, 65).
Generally, local sources of rock were exploited. Chlorite was used at a site on Inishkea North
and it was widely available on the island’s shoreline. Some work has been done in identifying
the provenance of millstones and quern stones on sites in counties’ Down and Wicklow. The
stones at Nendrum have been traced to the upper reaches of Bloody Bridge River, in the
Mourne Mountains, in south county Down (Meighan 2007, 205); a quernstone from Ballynarry
rath, has also been traced to the Mourne Mountains (Davison 1961/62, 73); and one of the
millstones from Rathmullan was sourced to Scrabo Hill, in north county Down (Lynn 1981/82,
136). These stones were quarried and transported across different polities, suggesting that
some form of mutual exchange was involved in their procurement, rather than the
compulsion of the local secular or religious authority.
Corlett (2010) has identified a number of unfinished and broken hand and water-powered
millstones in the granite-rich upland area of west Wicklow and suggests that this particular
region may have supplied millstones to the Leinster region in the early medieval period.
These millstones provides important information about the sequence of steps involved in their
manufacture from the extraction and fashioning of rough-outs at the outcrop, to the
perforation of the central hole and finally the dressing of the grinding surfaces. Corlett has
observed that millstones at Kilbeg, Ballynasculloge Upper and Knocknadroose appear to have
been manufactured at the source of the granite outcrop itself and not at their intended
destinations. This corroborates a passage in Cogitosus’ Life of Bridget which describes the
sourcing of a millstone for the monastic site of Kildare at the summit of a mountain (Connolly
and Picard 1987, 24-5) and recounts how they selected a big stone on the summit. ‘And
cutting it all the way round, they fashioned it into a circular and perforated millstone’. Unable
to bring the stone down from the summit, they decided to topple it down the slope and
through the intercession of St. Brigit, it landed at the base of the mountain without one single
fragment breaking off. However in other cases, unfinished millstones appear to be associated
with settlement enclosures and ecclesiastical sites and may represent on-site manufacture,
though it is possible that they were brought to these places as rough-outs which were
fashioned into a basic form at the source (Corlett 2010, 19).
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