The Rath of Dreen 15 



nothing short of calamitous that in not a single instance that 

 I can find has any record been preserved by the past curators as 

 to the actual associations and surroundings in which the axes 

 were found. Found in a lake," in a bog," in afield whilst 

 digging " are examples of all the information now forthcoming. 



In the now considerable number of excavations carried out 

 by this Society during the past four years, I have endeavoured 

 to chronicle in the most minute detail every material fact in 

 connection with the excavation and the circumstances and 

 positions in which remains were found. Without such details, 

 any mere collection of specimens of prehistoric implements is 

 robbed of much of its instructive value ; and consequently the 

 deductions arrived at from their inspection are liable to error. 



We have now three instances in which we have found stone 

 axes in actual and contemporary association with what are 

 generally known as the late Iron Age remains. These are :— 



1st. The Donegore souterrain, where one stone axe was 

 found of the rather rough thick type ; Wilde in his Catalogue 

 of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy records the reported 

 find in apparently the same cave of another axe and some arrow 

 heads "now lost, and a portion of a vessel richly ornamented 

 with inscribed scoring, now in the Academy's collection"; he 

 does not say, however, whether the vessel is a cooking pot or not, 

 or if turned on a wheel ; I regret I have not yet had an 

 opportunity of inspecting this in the Museum. Our finds in the 

 Donegore souterrain have been recorded in the Report for 1916, 

 and I have endeavoured to show that the age of the building of 

 these dwelbngs was between the 6th and the 8th centuries. 



2nd. The Ballykennedy Foundry where one perfect and one 

 fragmentary axe were found among the remains of many articles 

 of iron and glass.* 



* In my account of this investigation in the 1916 Report I mentioned 

 a piece of Bronze slag found close to a small crucible, which seemed to 

 tit it ; subsequent examination proves that what from its greenness I took 

 to be bronze slag is actually impure glass, which if purified, is the same 

 type of glass of which the dumb-bell bead found close by consists. 



