14 



collection of the Academy than were to be found in the Copenhagen Mu- 

 seum. He complimented the noble President upon the circumstance that, 

 through his instrumentality in procuring the " Treasure-trove regula- 

 tion," the Hoyal Irish Academy was now able, without drawing upon 

 its own very limited resources, to purchase any collection of articles 

 which might be discovered in Ireland, provided such articles were at 

 once brought to the Academy, or forwarded through the constabulary 

 or police. In detail, or spread through private collections, these articles 

 would be of comparatively little worth ; but collectively, and procured 

 as they were, with all the circumstances connected with their discovery 

 well known, they became of great historic interest. 



The circnmstances under which the osseous remains and the 

 accompanying relics were found were well worthy of consideration. 

 The surface of the great pit from which the macadamizing material of 

 Dublin was being procured, which was about twenty feet in section, 

 consisted of a layer of dark, alluvial soil, varying from eighteen 

 inches to two feet in depth. Upon the gravel bed on which it rested 

 were found several skeletons ; and among their bones, both above and 

 below them, were discovered the different articles referred to. It would 

 appear that they were worn by or were in the possession of the persons 

 to whom these skeletons belonged ; but there was no evidence of 

 " interment" having taken place ; and, from all the attendant circum- 

 stances, the investigator was left to believe one or other of two suppo- 

 sitions : the first was, that the bodies were buried in all the panoply of 

 war, with their weapons, offensive and defensive, and their armour, de- 

 corations, tools, and implements upon them — either hastily after a battle, 

 or according to the usage of the people to whom they belonged — which 

 latter was not only unlikely, but, from the shallow surface of the soil 

 covering them, most improbable. The other and most likely conjecture 

 was, that these Scandinavian invaders were killed in battle or some 

 sudden skirmish, and lay there on the lightly covered gravel field, on 

 the south side of the Liffey, until the birds of prey picked their bones, 

 and the weeds, grass, and soil accumulated over them during the last 

 eight or nine hundred years. 



Sir William was of opinion that the Scandinavian incursions into 

 Ireland extended back into the very remote period of the Tuatha de 

 Dannans, although the annalists assign the first great invasion of the 

 Tutons to the early part of the ninth century. We have no special notice 

 of any battle having been fought in the precise locality from which these 

 antiquities were procured, although several engagements tookplace round 

 the environs of Dublin. One of the last is that related in the " Annals 

 of the Four Masters," under the year 1171, when Asgall, or Hasculphus, 

 ex-King of the Foreigners of Ath-Cliath, attacked Milo de Cogan, near 

 the city, but was vanquished by the English Governor, and beheaded. 

 It is only in the museum of Christiania that we find any number of 

 swords identical with those discovered in Ireland ; and some of the few 

 that are in the collection at Copenhagen were, with other valuable ar- 



