The court tomb of Behy is a

megalithic monument A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

in the

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

of the same name (), near

Belderrig Béal Deirg (anglicized as Belderg or Belderrig) is a Gaeltacht village and townland in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland, Ireland.County Mayo,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. The monument is located within the Céide Fields complex, 150 meters above sea level on the slope of Maumakeogh hill, and is the most westerly of the thirty or so tombs in the Killala group. The site commands wide views across the sea to the north and to the Stags of Broadhaven. The monument is located 500 meters west of the Céide Fields Visitor Centre and is on private property. The chamber of the monument, which is buried beneath an envelope of peat, was long known to local turf cutters, and the site was named in folk tradition as the "Roomeens". The sunken chamber had been used as a still house for the manufacture of poteen. The monument first came to the attention of archaeologists when it was surveyed by Rúaidhrí de Valéra and Sean Ó Nualláin of the Archaeological Section of the Ordnance Survey in 1952. The monument was initially classed as a passage grave because of the cruciform chamber; this assessment was revised after a second survey in 1959.

Exacavations

The chamber and court of the tomb was excavated in 1963 and 1964, led by Rúaidhrí de Valéra, Michael Herity and Sean Ó Nualláin with a team of students from University College Dublin, which included Seamus Caulfield. The excavations revealed a trapezoidal cairn 28.5 meters long, 10.5 meters wide at the court and 6.5 meters wide at the western end. The cairn is bounded by a wall constructed of drystone masonry instead of kerb of boulders which would be more typical of this type of monument. The drystone wall also enclosed an oval court measuring 7.5 meters by 5 meters. The entrance to the transeptal or cruciform chamber, which is oriented to the east, is blocked by a tall sill-stone. The excavated portion of the monument has since been largely covered up again with peat. The cruciform main chamber and the antechamber of the court tomb of Behy are very large. The entrance to the chamber had been deliberately blocked up with dry stone masonry. Above the 2

meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

high chamber lie two capstones. The floor in the side chambers is paved. A range of early neolithic pottery and lithic artefacts were found during the excavation. A pre-bog stone wall adjoins the cairn, and the excavators noted that a wall crossed the monument, indicating that the wall post-dated the neolithic tomb, and that the material used to construct the wall may have been quarried from the cairn.

"Before excavation a stone 'fence' was noted in the cutaway bog running eastwards and westwards from the tomb and built on the mineral soil beneath the bog. The excavation showed that the fence or wall was built after the cairn of stones of the tomb had collapsed and therefore had to be later than the construction of the tomb but because the 'fence' underlay the peat, fundamental stratigraphical observation made it clear that the 'fence' had to be older than the initial growth of the bog."

Discussion

Court tombs are considered to be a specific type of chamber tomb found principally in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and Ireland. More than 400 examples are known in

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...

Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Del ...

, and the southwest of Scotland. Behy is an unusual

court tomb The court cairn or court tomb is a megalithic type of chambered cairn or gallery grave. During the period, 3900–3500 BCE, more than 390 court cairns were built in Ireland and over 100 in southwest Scotland. The Neolithic (New Stone A ...

with features not typically found in monuments of this class. The two side-chambered transepted gallery resembles the cruciform chamber of a

passage grave A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or with stone, and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age, and are found largely in Wester ...

. The court tomb of Behy lies within the

Céide Fields The Céide Fields () is an archaeological site on the north County Mayo coast in the west of Ireland, about northwest of Ballycastle. The site has been described as the most extensive Neolithic site in Ireland and is claimed to contain the old ...

complex, but the pre-bog walls surrounding the monument do not respect the sanctity cairn, which was presumably considered a sacred space. This is atypical for a megalithic site and indicates that the pre-bog walls, which are claimed by Seamus Caulfield to date from the neolithic, in fact post-date the monument. The

drywall Drywall (also called plasterboard, dry lining, wallboard, sheet rock, gypsum board, buster board, custard board, and gypsum panel) is a panel made of calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum), with or without additives, typically extruded between thic ...

material, which borders the obliquely set court at the entrance to the tomb, is unusual. In typical court tombs this role is taken by

orthostats This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic ( Stone Age) structures. Forecourt In archaeology, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb. Forecourts ...

. It is possible that other court tombs once had drywall masonry, but as this is easier to remove than heavy orthostats it has been lost while the court orthostats have survived.

References

* Ruaidhrí de Valera, Seán Ó Nualláin
''A Cruciform Passage-Grave: At Behy Townland, Co. Mayo.''
In: ''Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society'', Vol. 25, No. 1/2 (1952), pp. 47–51.

External links

{{coord, 54, 18, 15.48, N, 9, 27, 45.49, W, region:IE-MO_type:landmark, display=title Megalithic monuments in Ireland Archaeological sites in County Mayo Tumuli in Ireland Chambered cairns Tombs in the Republic of Ireland

Exacavations

Discussion

See also

References

External links