A bronze age urn was found on a construction site in Ireland

An artefact from the bronze age, a cremation urn, was found by archaeologists in the Irish city Of Ballyshannon. The study of the land plot by scientists is connected with the upcoming construction of the city hospital. The urn, made 4 thousand years ago, is very fragile and required careful handling during the extraction process. Susannah Kelly, a conservation specialist who also cleans the item in the laboratory, was assigned responsibility for this stage of work. Before removal, the artifact was wrapped in plastic wrap and polymer bandages.

The urn was sent to Dublin, where the cremated remains are being examined to determine whether they belonged to one or more people. This should help the larger fragments of bones that are better preserved. All the finds were removed from the construction site. Excavation Manager Tamlyn McHugh emphasizes the importance of conducting such research at any construction site, so as not to lose important artifacts of the past.

Preliminary examination gives grounds to attribute this artifact to the late period of the Bell-shaped Cup culture (Veakeg Culture). Dishes of this type were used for storing food and liquids, for smelting copper from copper ore. Burial vessels of this type had a special shape that reflected their ritual purpose. Representatives of this culture appear in Ireland a little later than other countries of Western Europe – at the turn of the III and II thousand BC. in accordance with traditional Irish mythology, these peoples can presumably be identified with the Fir Bolg.