A highly significant Bronze Age archaeological find near Armagh will help researchers date other important early Irish artefacts. Dick Ahlstrom reports
The Ulster Museum is busy conserving a highly significant archaeological find of great importance to the study of Ireland's distant past. The hoard, including a bronze sword, wooden scabbard and two small bronze bowls, should help to provide a clearer historical chronology for other Irish finds.
"It is one of the most important Bronze Age finds in a long time," says Richard Warner, the Ulster Museum's keeper of archaeology and ethnography. "It is a very, very exciting time."
The hoard was unearthed in late February in the townland of Tamlaght, six miles west of Armagh and about two kilometres away from the archaeologically rich Navan Fort complex in Co Armagh. The finder reported the discovery immediately, says Warner, who will oversee the hoard's conservation.
It includes the 65cm long sword, scabbard and the two bronze bowls, both about 15cm across. These were found one inside the other, with the highly decorated inside bowl lying in fragments at the bottom of the outer bowl.
"The sword is known as an Irish bronze leaf-shaped sword. It would date to around the 12th or 11 century BC," says Warner. It has a distinctive shape, wider in the middle and tapering towards either end. The bowls were probably used for drinking alcohol and the three were typical possessions of early Irish warriors.
The bowls are particularly noteworthy, he adds, because they are easily dated. This type of bowl came exclusively from the area around the modern German Czech border. "They were both made in central Europe and somehow found their way to Ireland."
At the time these objects were made and subsequently buried, Ireland was a hierarchical warrior society. It was a time when hill forts provided bases for local warlords. The find was made about 500 metres from a large, triple-ditch hill fort known locally as Haughey's Fort, explains Warner.
He firmly believes that the disposal of the objects was a "ritual act", they were not simply hidden for later use. "They were laid down in a neat, straight line. The sword would certainly be a valuable object for a warrior to own," he added, and would not have been left behind lightly.
The bowls, or probably more accurately, a bowl and slightly smaller decorated cup were unknown in the archeological record here although they were mass-produced on the Continent.
"They are incredibly distinctive objects," he says. "The obvious conclusion is they got here through trade," he adds but Warner believes they could have reached Ireland through ritual gift giving. "Gift giving was quite an important thing at that time," he says.
Although relatively small, only four objects in a bad state of decomposition, the hoard will help researchers date other artefacts and is valuable for a number of reasons, says Warner.
"One, it is the first time that objects of this particular background and date have been found in Ireland. The other important thing is it gives a chronological position which we are lacking in Ireland."
Many Irish artefacts are difficult to date but the bowl shape and design allows very accurate dating. Their discovery with the sword now enables the weapon to be dated as well. "It allows us to synchronise an Irish prehistoric phase with a European prehistoric phase, and the latter is well dated and well known," says Warner.
"The larger bowl is in reasonable condition, the sword is badly corroded," he says. Very little will be done to conserve the find however. It will not be restored but further damage will be prevented, in keeping with the modern museum practice of "minimal intervention."
Although badly damaged, Warner will be able to reproduce the inner bowl's elaborate decoration thanks to the use of advanced laser technology. Boggy soil filtered in between the two bowls, defining the decoration and holding the pattern even after the bowl broke up.
Scottish based company Kestrel 3D used a laser to record the impressions left in the peat.
"We used a laser scanning technique to capture the image of that peat surface to construct the small bowl," says Warner.