Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/183



The Rev. J. Graves, of Borris in Ossory, Local Secretary, forwarded the following communication: "Some time since the proprietor of the lands of Cuffborough, situate in the parish of Aghaboe, and Queen's County, ordered a mound of earth in one of his fields to be removed. After his labourers had cleared away a considerable portion of the hillock, they exposed to view a beehive-shaped structure of rough stones, three or four of which being removed gave entrance to a chamber within, which proved to be sepulchral. This chamber, measuring about five feet in diameter, had been formed by placing a circle of large stones on edge, at the back of which clay and small stones seemed to have been carefully and compactly banked up; the upright stones measured about three feet and a half in height from the floor of the chamber. On the upper edge of this circle, and with a slight projection over its inner face, was laid, on the flat, another circle of tolerably large stones, above these another row also projecting, and so on until the dome was closed at the apex by a single large stone. The floor of this chamber, which was perfectly dry, was covered by about an inch in depth of very fine dust; and in the centre, lying confusedly, were the bones of two human skeletons. The bones were quite perfect when first exposed to the atmosphere, but in a short time crumbled away. From their position when discovered, it would appear as if the bodies had been placed in a sitting posture, and that the bones, in the process of decay, had fallen one upon the other. One of the skulls was probably that of a female, being considerably smaller than the other, but on this point I cannot speak positively. The sepulchral chamber just described had evidently been built over the bodies of the deceased persons, there being no door, or other aperture by which they could afterwards have been introduced. The bones shewed no sign of cremation, and the impalpable dust covering the floor of the chamber, proved that the dead bodies had been placed there entire, and had undergone the process of decay after being enclosed within the rude stonework of their tomb; around and above which, earth had been heaped up, thus forming a regular sepulchral tumulus.

Were there, at the present day, any doubt as to the purpose for which the well known tumuli, existing at New Grange, Dowth, and Knowth on the margin of the Boyne, near Drogheda, had been constructed, the tumulus and sepulchral chamber above described, would serve to indicate that purpose; for, although on a very diminutive scale, it is identical in principles of construction with the former ones, presenting only such differences in