Seanda Ezine is an online magazine that features occasional articles relating to new archaeological discoveries and resources from TII Archaeology & Heritage. It represents an electronic continuation of Seanda magazine, which was published between 2006 and 2013, and can be accessed here.
To coincide with the formal launch of the latest TII paperback and audio book, TII Archaeologist Noel Dunne details the rediscovery of a 'lost' medieval village at Mullamast, Co. Kildare, which may well be the county's first attested stud farm.
TII Archaeologist Martin Jones reports on a workshop on osteoarchaeology held at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, that offered secondary school students a rare glimpse of life in early medieval Ireland.
In advance of the imminent opening of Luas Cross City, Dr Frank Prendergast, formerly of DIT Bolton Street, reports on the rare survival of a stereo-photographic card that provides a novel three-dimensional insight into Dublin’s public transport heritage.
Archaeologists with Mayo County Council and ACSU Ltd discuss the use of limekilns in 19th-century rural Ireland and present a three-dimensional model of a recently excavated kiln on the route of the N5 Turlough-Westport road scheme.
Archaeological facial reconstruction integrates rigorous scientific methodologies with an artistic dimension to reconstruct the human countenance from skeletal material. We can use this endeavour and these faces to connect to our shared human past. Through this, we see that those that came before us are actually not that different from us after all. In this example we meet an early medieval ancestor from Owenbristy, Co. Galway.
In 1909, while ploughing a low, flat-topped hillock in the townland of Mullanstown, Co. Louth, a farmer unexpectedly came upon human bones. Nearly 100 years later, during the early planning stages for the N52 Ardee Bypass, archaeologists had an opportunity to reinvestigate this site and, with the aid of the results from geophysical survey and archaeological testing, facilitate a redesign of the preferred route so as to avoid the core of an important early medieval burial ground.
The discovery of a prehistoric urn burial is a comparatively rare event in the course of excavations on proposed road schemes. Their careful excavation and recording provides the opportunity to examine the funerary rites of our ancestors and to come close to investigating a single defined event: the burial of a member of the community.
On the 25 January 2014, the general public were presented with the opportunity to learn about the archaeological discoveries made along the recently opened N22 Tralee Bypass during a free seminar entitled ‘Touring Tralee’s Past’, which was organised by the NRA and Kerry County Council. Speakers from Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd and Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd contributed to the afternoon event, which was hosted by the Kerry County Museum in Tralee.
A series of reconstruction drawings were commissioned in late 2013 for inclusion in a number of forthcoming TII publications. The images were created by artists J G O’Donoghue and Dave Pollock working closely with archaeologists who have specialist expertise in each of the subjects illustrated. While faithful to the excavated evidence, all involved had to combine their skills and knowledge to choose which details to use to tell a story of a point in time in the life of a person, object or place.