Archeologists Olle Hemdorff and Eva Thäte investigate finds of older artifacts in younger graves; Source: Science Daily; Credit: Image courtesy of The University of Stavanger

In 2005 the archaeologists investigated a grave at Avaldsnes in Karmøy in southwestern Norway, supposed to be from the late Iron Age, i.e. from 600 to 1000 AD. Avaldsnes is rich in archeological finds. They dot an area that has been a seat of power all the way back to around 300. Archaeologist Olle Hemdorff at the University of Stavanger’s Museum of Archaeology was responsible for a series of excavations at Avaldsnes in 1993-94 and 2005-06.

“It became clear to us quite early that the grave had been plundered. The material in the grave had been messed up and now contained brick and porcelain fragments from younger layers of soil,” Hemdorff says.

Plundering of graves was very common in the 19th century and actually legal. It was not until the Cultural Heritage Act in 1905 made it a criminal offence for lay persons to excavate cultural monuments.

Axes and pearls

The German archaeologist Eva Thäte is in the spring of 2010 visiting researcher at the Museum of Archaeology. She is also a guest researcher at the University of Chester in England. The cooperation with Hemdorff started in 2003 when Thäte came to Stavanger in connection with a doctoral work on the recycling of ancient tombs. The latest research project carried out by the two archaeologists is on finds of older artifacts in younger graves. In the grave at Avaldsnes the researchers found seven handsome glass pearls in the dirt.

“In the late Iron Age glass was the most common material for making pearls, and therefore glass pearls are often found in men’s and women’s graves from this period. The women wore the pearls in a cord around the neck and brought more pearls with them into the grave than men did. The discovery of the seven pearls made us assume that it was a woman’s grave we investigated,” Hemdorff says.

“But then we suddenly found a stone axe. It was in the same layer of soil as some of the pearls. The axe is from the Stone Age and more than a thousand years older than the pearls! It is a so-called greenstone axe. All the other indicators suggested that the cairn was from the Iron Age and belonged to a buried woman. So why was there an old axe from the Stone Age in the grave?,” the archaeologist asks.

Not accidental

During the last three years documented discoveries of artifacts have been made that are typical for the Stone Age — marks from flint, flint fragments, quarts, axes, etc. in younger burial mounds.

“Unfortunately this documentation did not begin until the 1970s. Up to that date neither archeologists nor grave robbers were aware of these objects. They were just seen as unimportant and without archeological value. It is only now that we are beginning to have enough data for analysis, and we have made many enough discoveries of Stone Age artifacts in younger graves to say that they make a clear pattern,” Thäte says.

She points to a good example from Sogndal in Sogn og Fjordane where a stone axe was found in an untouched stone coffin from the 5th century.

“The axe must have been placed there intentionally. Other finds in Scandinavia make this pattern even clearer. In Halland in Sweden they have found a burial site consisting of almost one hundred graves from the late Iron Age where one has registered processed flint objects in nearly every grave,” Hemdorff says.

Starting with the finds around the grave at Avaldsnes and taking the other finds into account, it is not likely that the axe ended up in the grave by accident. Why was it deposited there?

Thunderstones from the sky

The researchers say that people back in the Iron Age had a conscious relationship to objects from earlier times that connected them to their past.

“People probably considered old objects as a heritage from their ancestors. Recycling of old burial mounds for new graves is an indication of this relationship. The idea was that the mounds were memories from a distant past, and written sources indicate that recycling of mounds had a double function. Apart from providing a grave for the dead they also legitimized property and rights. People asserted their control over an area by burying their family in a gravesite belonging to their ancestors,” Thäte explains.

The archeologists think that people in pre-history were superstitious and that the axe was deposited in the grave as a part of the burial ritual.

“People believed that the lightning created thunderstones and that individuals who owned such stones would not be hit by the lightening,” Hemdorff says.

The idea of a rock falling from the sky caused by lightening is known all over the world. It is certainly found in Roman times and it is connected to objects like meteors, flint stone axes and petrified sea urchins.

“According to folklore a flint axe might protect against lightening and function as a kind of charm,” Thäte says.

In Northern Europe the old idea of the thunder god Thor, who throws his hammer when lightning strikes, is common property. It was alive all the way up to the 19th century.

“Thor’s mission was to protect gods and people against evil and chaos and it was therefore believed that Thor’s rocks protected houses and people. Two things seem to be important when choosing thunderstones: The form had to be similar to an axe or a hammer, that is a ground stone or flint, or the stone had to have “flaming” properties, which flint and quarts have,” Hendorff says.

Phallus and fertility

“Both the form of the axe and the flint stones to make fire may be associated with fertility. Thor’s hammer is clearly linked to fertility and prosperity. The hammer is a phallus fertilizing the soil, which gives it apotropaic quality, i.e. it has the ability to protect against evil and accidents,” Thäte explains.

Since people imagined that thunderstones fell to the ground in connection with lightning, it is possible that the rocks incorporated some of the qualities of lightening or had the power to create a bright light.

“Here is a clear pattern once more. We find old artifacts made of flint in the younger burial mounds. Flint had a strong symbolic power. The stones created fire and were seen as important objects. They can also symbolize the power of lightning,” Hemdorff says.

The Avaldsnes axe

But now back to the axe at Avaldsnes and the question why it was in the plundered grave.

“If you consider how widespread the idea of thunderstones was all the way up to the 19th century, and how common superstition was, it is not unlikely that the grave robbers left a protective amulet to make up for their misdeed. After all they opened a grave and committed sacrilege. Maybe they hoped that the axe provided protection against the spirit of the dead and their ghosts,” Hemdorff says.

More excavations of graves and houses with unusual artifacts and comparing them to data from different places will probably yield an even clearer pattern.

Thunderstones are definitely of great archaeological value.

Source: Science Daily

(A) & (b) convey bones of a cave lion; Source: USA Today; Credit: JAS. Elsevier

In the current Journal of Archaeological Science, a team led by Ruth Blasco of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, describes lion bones found at the Gran Dolina site in Sierra de Atapuerca. The cave contains hundreds of animal bones, largely red deer and horses, but also a few carnivores in rock layers dating to 250,000 to 350,000 years ago.

One set of lion bones stands out among the other carnivores like foxes and bears. “The relatively high occurrence of cutmarks on lion bones (11.76%) indicates an association between hominids (humans) and this predator,” says the study, adding, “cutmarks related to the skinning and defleshing are identified and the human use of bone marrow is documented by diagnostic elements of anthropogenic (man-made) breakage. All these evidences suggest that the lion was used for food.”

But did the cave diners hunt the lion, Panthera leo fossilis, a cave lion about seven feet long, considerably bigger than today’s African lions, or just pick up some roadkill? “The fact that no pathologies have been documented on the P. leo fossilis remains, which indicate possible diseases or injuries of a traumatic nature that make this predator vulnerable,” suggests that they hunted the big cat.

Even though early humans didn’t hunt lions often, they likely resided higher than the cats on the food chain, the team argues, concluding, “the hunting of this predator suggests that the hominids of the Middle Pleistocene are successful hunters able to face the large predators.”

Source: USA Today

A Statue of Ajax; Could the tomb be the final resting place of his niece or Could the tomb of an ancient princess, the daughter of King Teukros of Salamis?; Source: www.terraspirit.com/archives/2005/04/

But whether a tomb recently uncovered on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus contains the bones and booty of a close relative of a Trojan war hero straight from the pages of Homer, or will just yield better evidence for understanding the rituals and lives of ancient Greeks, is yet to be revealed.

Construction workers in the eastern coastal town of Paralimni, popular with tourists, literally stumbled onto a rare unlooted tomb dating back to the ancient world, when they were digging up the roadside to lay new paving stones in the “Fig Tree Bay” area.

“The ground just gave way,” said Andreas Evangelou, said the mayor of the once sleepy fishing village.

Beneath the road’s surface, a burial chamber, untouched by looters was awakened from thousands of years of slumber, and will now give experts the opportunity to piece together a more accurate picture of the life and rituals of the ancients.

“It’s a usual tomb found in the area of Protaras, which is unlooted. We don’t know yet what it is, the only unique thing is that it is unlooted, which may give us a better understanding of their life and rituals during that period,” said Maria Hadjicosti, the director of Cyprus’s Antiquities Department.

At least four clay coffins (sarcophagi) were found, along with the usual offerings of pottery and glassware, accompanying the dead to the next life. At least one of the clay coffins is adorned with floral motifs.

“It looks like it was in continual use because there are four sarcophagi with their remains,” Evangelou said.

Local press on the east Mediterranean island have carried wild claims that the tomb belongs to an ancient princess, the daughter of King Teukros of Salamis. Salamis was once the capital of Cyprus’s 10 city kingdoms.

Legend has it that the king — whose brother was Ajax and uncle was the Trojan King Priam — ordered that his daughter be buried along with her golden throne and chariot at the point where the sun meets the sea.

Cypriot experts don’t share the local speculation on the tomb’s relationship with the figures of Greek mythology.

“It is impossible to connect the content of this tomb with ancient sources,” Hadjicosti said.

According to Evangelou, it is likely that this is not the only burial site in the area.

“Personally, I believe that this area is full of tombs and ancient relics, and it looks like this legend has a basis,” Evangelou said.

Plans are now underway to share this glimpse into the past with visitors.

“We want to create something similar to that outside the Acropolis museum in Athens, with a glass pavement,” Evangelou said.

On a darker note, the mayor said an old wives’ tales says the person who uncovers the princess’s grave site will come to a sticky end.

Source: The Vancouver Sun

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones; Source: Fox News

But while his movie counterpart is often seen plucking priceless artefacts from ancient tombs, Dr Gill does the process in reverse – and sends the relics back to where they came from.

The Welsh academic works across the world in persuading museums to return ancient artefacts to Egypt, Italy, Greece and other countries suffering a plague of history looting.

The 48-year-old, a reader in Mediterranean archaeology at Swansea University, most recently worked with two other experts to persuade London-based fine art dealers Bonhams to withdraw four Roman sculptures from auction, amid claims they were stolen from archaeological sites overseas.

Photographs studied by Dr Gill suggested the sculptures – funerary busts and a marble statue of a youth from the second century AD – were illicitly excavated.

Dr Gill, who lives in Sketty, Swansea, said: “The looting of human history has become a full-scale industry.

“In some countries like Italy, for example, some are literally using mechanical diggers on historical sites to rip up artefacts for sale.

“These have tended to reach auction rooms in places like New York and London via Switzerland, though the Swiss are now trying to tighten controls.

“Archaeological sites are being decimated and the few treasures taken away for financial gain lose their context. Strip them from that context and we lose dating, related objects and information about who used them.

“Presenting a looted object means that we value the object as a beautiful thing but we do not care about the society and culture that created it. And that is an uncivilised view.”

But it’s a lucrative business.

Dr Gill and his colleagues Dr Christopher Chippindale, (corr) the curator for British Collections at Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and ex-Greek government archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis, say £300m worth of antiquities have been sold at just two major auction houses in the past 12 years.

Looting of ancient artefacts has a long history going back to the tomb raiders of ancient Egypt.

Rome has been sacked seven times and other famous examples include the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 and the looting of Aztec gold by Spanish conquistadors.

Later came more careful excavations like Howard Carter and Lord Caernarvon’s famous excavation of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1923 with precious artefacts being taken from Egypt to Britain, something that would now be regarded as sacrilege.

But it was the wholesale theft of priceless Babylonian treasures from Baghdad following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that highlighted a modern revival in culture theft.

Ancient pottery and sculptures, cuneiform tablets from Sumerian and Babylonian times, and the stunning stone reliefs from the palaces of Assyrian kings were taken away in trucks to be sold in Europe and North America.

The Americans even placed a tank across the museum doorway to stop the open thieving and the Italian Carabinieri art squad, experienced in protecting Roman art, were called in to help.

Historical sites in Central America and areas in Cambodia, Italy, Mali and China have also seen a big rise in ancient relic thefts in the past 20 years.

Dr Gill said: “There was a Unesco convention passed in 1970 which many countries have now signed making it illegal to import and export cultural property.

“But it still goes on with some private collectors and even museums turning a blind eye.”

Dr Gill, working with Dr Chippindale, carried out a survey in 1999 which found 75% of antiquities in private and museum collections had no direct provenance.

Archaeology Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, said: “The single largest source of destruction of the archaeological heritage today is through looting – the illicit, unrecorded and unpublished excavation to provide antiquities for commercial profit.”

He said:”The peasants who dig the objects out of the ground because there are people who pay good money for them, they are the innocent wrongdoers,.

“But the people who pay money for antiquities when they have no idea where they’re from – they’re the people I would blame.”

A spokesman for Bonhams auctioneers said of its decision to withdraw the Roman sculptures: “Whenever a serious question is raised about an item’s provenance we withdraw it from sale pending an internal investigation. We take rigorous care to ensure that we only sell items that have a clear provenance.”

Source: Wales Online

Ikea's self-construction furniture model might not be so revolutionary after all

Archaeologists in Italy unearthed the remains of what they say may be an ancient temple with components inscribed with instructions for assembly.

The archaeologists are likening the possibly 6th-century temple discovery in Torre Satriano, Italy, to Ikea furniture, the inexpensive home furnishings the purchaser assembles at home, the British Daily Telegraph and the Times of London reported Thursday.

The head of archaeology at Basilica University, Professor Massimo Osanna, said that the team working at what was once Magna Graecia had found a sloping roof with red and black decorations, with “masculine” and “feminine” pieces inscribed with instructions on how to slot them together.

The director of the British School at Rome, Professor Christopher Smith, told The Times the discovery was “the clearest example yet found of mason’s marks of the time. It looks as if someone was instructing others how to mass-produce components and put them together in this way.”

Osanna said that a taste for the Grecian style among the indigenous population must have caused an industrious builder to create inexpensive do-it-yourself components similar to classical Greek architecture.

The roof was designed to filter rainwater down the decorative panels, known as cymatiums, with projections to protect the lower wall.

“So far around a hundred inscribed fragments have been recovered, with masculine ordinal numbers on the cymatiums and feminine ones on the friezes,” Osanna said, adding that the result was “a kind of instruction booklet.”

[via: UPI]

Dartmoor, The Standing Row. Experts suggest that some of the large stones at Dartmoor could be related to funerary rites and pre-date Stonehenge; Source: MSNBC; Credit: Flickr-user Steve Calcott

The Dartmoor megaliths, which were recently carbon-dated to around 3500 B.C., could predate Stonehenge, but both sites feature large standing stones that are aligned to mark the rising of the midsummer sun and the setting of the midwinter sun. Yet another Dartmoor stone monument, called Drizzlecombe, shares the same orientation.

The ancient Brits were not necessarily sun worshippers, however.

Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of the journal, told Discovery News that “huge quantities of barbecued juvenile pig bones” were found near Stonehenge, indicating that the animals were born in the spring and killed not far from the site “for pork feasting” in midwinter.

“The general feeling is that the sun was symbolizing or marking the occasion, rather than being the ritual focus itself, so it probably was not sun worship,” added Pitts, who is author of the book “Hengeworld” and is one of the leading experts on British megaliths.

This feasting was not just a meaningless pork party, and might have been more akin to a post-funeral wake today.

Pitts believes the “solstice alignment phenomenon perhaps has something to do with death.”

As he explains the setting sun and shorter days of winter would have represented the passage into the darkness of the underworld, and the reverse as the days start to lengthen again.

“At Stonehenge,” he continued, “the dark navy-colored bluestones may themselves represent ancestors or spirits from the underworld, while the big orangey-pink (before weathering) sarsens could reflect summer and light.”

The Dartmoor megaliths, described in a separate study in the current issue of the journal Antiquity, are now lying flat, since the stones in a row fell, or were individually pushed, over. The toppling was fortuitous for historians, however, since peat above and the below the stones permitted the carbon dating, which is extremely rare for such monuments.

Tom Greeves, who discovered the Dartmoor stones at a site called Cut Hill and is co-author of the Antiquity paper, said it is “remarkable that a previously unrecorded stone row with very large stones has been noted for the first time on one of Dartmoor’s highest and remotest hills.”

He added that to reach their location “requires a walk of about two hours from whatever direction.”

A ditched barrow (a mound of earth or stones) exists very close to the Cut Hill stones, providing further evidence that burials and possible death-related rituals might have taken place there.

At least 81 stone monuments have now been discovered nearby, with Cut Hill’s being among the largest at over 705 feet in length. Both Greeves and Pitts said it’s possible some of the monuments served different functions, such as marking land use zones. The barrows, shared alignment, and other finds, however, indicate several standing stone monuments held ritualistic meaning.

Pitts likened their construction to the building of cathedrals and pyramids, and to the carving of the giant heads on Easter Island.

All, he said, are involved in the “defining of ritual spaces, giving ceremony and power distinctive physical presences, engaging large numbers by employing them in the construction processes, ceremonializing places beyond the mere moment of the rituals.”

Pitts hopes that in the near future, archaeologists will carefully place the Cut Hill stones back into their upright positions, to further reveal what the monument looked like when it was first erected.

Source: MSNBC

A Photograph of what a Viking may have looked like; By Flickr User Hans s

The analysis – performed by Danish researchers on bones from skeletons found during excavations in south Greenland – revealed that the settlers’ Nordic blood was mixed with Celtic blood, probably originating from the British Isles.

Danish archaeologists are currently conducting the first regional study of southern Greenland’s original settlers, whose colonies date back to the year 985. The skeletons disinterred outside the old church also date back to just a few years after that period.

‘The research results haven’t yet been published, but initial results somewhat surprisingly suggest that the people in the graves were more Celtic than Nordic,’ said Jette Arneborg, curator and senior scientist at the National Museum, and one of the Danish archaeologists involved in the project.

‘We’ve always known that Norsemen travelled a lot and we also know that the early inhabitants of the Faroe Islands and Iceland had traces of Celtic genes. But now we also have evidence of this in Greenland as well,’ she added.

Although the DNA analysis reveals the inhabitants had Celtic blood in their veins, Arneborg said there was no question that the settlers were Nordic.

‘Everything these people did – their culture, means of nourishment and so on – was clearly Scandinavian,’ she said.

Earlier studies of populations living in the Faeroe Islands and Iceland have shown that it was primarily the women who were of Celtic origin.

Arneborg said that indicated the Vikings may have come from Norway down past the British Isles – where they took women with them – and then continued on into the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.

Source: The Copenhagen Post

Excavation at the Viking mass grave in Dorset; Source: Times Online

Not the killing fields of Iraq or the Balkans but the Ridgeway, near Weymouth, an ancient track across the now tranquil Dorset countryside, where one thousand years ago a long forgotten massacre took place.

The victims, a mystery when the discovery of the mass grave was first revealed in The Times, have been identified. They were Viking raiders who had come to Britain in search of slaves and plunder.

The discovery, during construction of a relief road for sailing events in the 2012 Olympics, led to a host of theories. At first it was thought they were Iron Age warriors killed by the invading Roman Legions during fighting for Maiden Castle, Britain’s largest hill fort. That theory was ruled out when radio carbon tests dated the bones to between AD910 and AD1030, a thousand years later.

Now tests on isotopes in the enamel of their teeth has found the men came from further afield. They had sailed across the North Sea from what is now Scandinavia. At least one of the Norse men had lived much of his life inside the Arctic Circle.

Study of the bones has revealed the brutality of their deaths. Their heads were not cleanly parted from their shoulders with the swing of an executioners’ axe, but hacked off with swords as the naked warriors tried to defend themselves with their bare hands.

Ceri Boston, an expert in ancient bones who examined the remains, said: “It was not a straight one slice and head off. They were all hacked at around the head and jaw. It doesn’t look like they were very willing or the executioners very skilled.

“We think the decapitation was messy because the person was moving around. One man had his hands sliced through. It looks like he was trying to grab hold of the sword as he was being executed.”

Archaeologist believe the men were from a captured raiding party and were taken to the site by Anglo-Saxons defending their land for the specific purpose of putting them to death. Ms Boston added: “The location is a typical place for a Saxon execution site, on a main road and a parish boundary and close to prehistoric burrows.”

Teeth from ten individuals were examined by Dr Jane Evans and Carolyn Chenery at NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham. Dr Evans said: “Isotopes from drinking water and food are fixed in the enamel and dentine of teeth as the teeth are formed in early life. The isotope data we obtained from the burial pit teeth strongly indicate that the men executed on the Ridgeway originated from a variety of places within the Scandinavian countries.

“These results are fantastic, this is the best example we have ever seen of a group of individuals that clearly have their origins outside Britain.”

The scientists hope to uncover more details of the lifestyles, activities, general health and diets of the warriors as the analysis continues.

Vikings raiding parties struck all around Britain and Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries. They colonised part of northern France now known as Normandy.

David Score, from Oxford Archaeology, which excavated the grave, said: “Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual and presents an incredible opportunity to learn more about what was happening in Dorset at this time.”

Source: Times Online

The Excavation director at the entrance to a recently excavated eighth-century B.C. tomb of an important high priestess; Source: USA Today; Credit: Nicholas Stampolidis

In an Archaeology magazine report, writer Eti Bonn-Muller details the results from last summer’s excavation of the tombs of Orthi Petra at Eleutherna on Crete, where a team found the burials of a high priestess of Zeus and three acolytes this summer.

“People then may have considered them sorceresses, or intermediaries with the gods,” Bonn-Muller says. Led by archaeologist Nicholas Stampolidis, the team dates the four burials to 2,800 years ago. Earlier digs had discovered the cremated remains of other priestesses, buried together in large “pithoi” jars from 2,900 to 2,700 years ago. All of the women appear related, based on distinctive features of their teeth, the team reports. “What’s really remarkable is the find shows these women were a dynasty that lasted at least 200 years in this location,” Bonn-Muller says.

The burial site is near Mount Ida, where in Greek mythology, Zeus, the king of the gods, was sheltered from his father in infancy. Artifacts from the tombs show trade with Egypt, Greece and the Near East took place on Crete at the time. “The finds have the potential to change how we think about the roles of women during this period of time,” Bonn-Muller adds. “Archaeologists had thrift of the era as an empty period but we are seeing a lot took place then.

Source: USA Today

An aerial photo of Rathnadrinna Fort (from the OS map of Ireland), c.3km south of the Rock of Cashel in Co Tipperary; Source: Irish Times

Their initial findings suggest that the site may have been used for Bronze Age sporting contests in an arena that is the ancient equivalent of Semple Stadium.

Archaeologists have long been curious about the origins of the Rathnadrinna Fort located about 3km south of the Rock of Cashel – one of Ireland’s most important heritage locations and seat of the High Kings of Munster.

The unusually large and distinctive landmark is still subject to many of the traditional taboos surrounding fairy forts. Archaeologists say that many people in rural areas still believe it is unwise to enter a fairy fort or to cut down perimeter trees or vegetation.

Ian Doyle, head of conservation services and archaeology with the Heritage Council, said it was traditionally believed that the fort was a “defended farmstead” of a type commonly built in Ireland about 1,200 years ago.

But while the “average run-of-the-mill fairy fort” is ringed by one defensive perimeter ditch, “Rathnadrinna Fort is quite rare because it has three rings”. Despite the historical significance of the landscape, the fort has never been excavated.

Mr Doyle said “when you think of Tara, the countryside surrounding the Rock of Cashel must hold massive potential for discoveries”. This led the council to fund a survey of the site which was carried out by a team of archaeologists led by Cashel-based Richard O’Brien and the Co Mayo company Earthsound Archaeological Geophysics.

Using highly sensitive equipment, the soil was subjected to “high-resolution magnetic imaging” – similar to an MRI scan. It is the first time that any of the fairy forts in the countryside surrounding the Rock of Cashel has been surveyed in this manner.

Speaking to The Irish Times about the results, Mr O’Brien said that “none of the traditional evidence associated with ring forts – such as houses, hearths or rubbish pits – was found”. Instead, the team discovered that the site may have been first used 3,000 years ago during the late Bronze Age.

He said one of the most exciting discoveries was evidence of a Stonehenge-style circle of wooden posts suggestive of “a ceremonial or ritual role for the fort”.

Mr O’Brien said the use of the site would have changed down through the centuries and the survey results indicate that it had “a royal function”. But the most intriguing possibility, he said, was that the “vast interior area which is much larger than most ring forts is like a sports arena”.

Rathnadrinna translates as the “Fort of the Contest”, he added.

Source: Irish Times