Ballyalton Court Cairn

Ballyalton Court Cairn is a single court grave situated on a rock outcrop by the roadside 0.5 miles from Ballyalton village, which is 2.25 miles east of Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland, at grid ref 531 448.cite book | last=Evans, E| year=1966 |title=Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland. A Guide | publisher=BT Batsford | location=London | pages=p93-94] The tomb contained human bones, flint implements and pottery now known as Ballyalton bowls.

Features

The flattened facade of the court, facing south-east, lacks two orthostats at the end of the eastern horn. In the gap left by the outermost, a hoard of 44 flints was discovered, including two axes, and a stone bead and whorl. The gallery is 25ft long, segmented by a septal slab without jambs, and there may originally have been a third chamber. It is set in a cairn which appears egg-shaped, with a maximum diameter of 115 by 65ft. At the blunt end, opposite the portal, is a large standing stone, now leaning. The forecourt was roughly paved and a bank had been built against the portal.

History

When the 1933 excavation was carried out, it was done without damaging the thorn tree growing on the cairn. The archaeologists had been told that after an earlier digger had interfered with the tree, "the plates that night danced on the dresser in his kitchen", suggesting it was perhaps a fairy thorn.

Excavations

When excavated in 1933, the tomb was found to contain the very fragmentary, unburnt bones of at least six people.cite book | last=Waddell, J| year=2000 |title=The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland | publisher=Wordwell | location=Bray | pages=p47,53,83 and 86] A cord-ornamented bowl was found in excavations by Davies and Evans above a paving in the front chamber of the cairn. Neolithic finds included pottery with pointed shoulder, a kite-shaped arrowhead, two plano-convex knives and hollow scrappers. The corded vessel is an upright, open bowl with a slight shoulder between the neck and the bowl and five lugs set vertically on the shoulder. The upper part of the bowl is decorated with 11 horizontal rows of twisted cord pattern. Twin vertical cord lines run from the rim downwards onto each of the lugs. [cite book | last=Herity, M and Eogan, G| year=1977 |title=Ireland in Prehistory | publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul | location=London | pages=p32,36, 95 and 107] These bowls, characterised by a small neck converging on a very wide shoulder, with surfaces decorated with incisions or cord impressions, are now called Ballyalton bowls after this find. The finding of split animal bones at the site has been interpreted as the remains of a funeral feast. [cite book | last=Mallory, JP and McNeill, TE| year=1991 |title=the Archaeology of Ulster from Colonization to Plantation | publisher=Institute of Irish Studies, QUB | location=Belfast | pages=p52-53 and 59] These bones were identified as sheep (or goat), dog (or wolf), ox and pig. Two flint axeheads (small and rather poorly chipped), 39 flint flakes, a nodule and two other flint implements, were found at the base of one of the stones of the tomb. What appears to have been a stone bead, a flat, circular stone, 37mm in diameter with a central perforation, was also found.

References

External links

* [http://www.megalithomania.com/show/site/273/Ballyalton.htm Megalithomania - Photographs of Ballyalton Court Tomb]
* [http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/down/ballyalton/ballyalton.html Irish Antiquities - Photographs of Ballyalton Court Tomb]