At Ballon Hill, near Tullow, County Carlow, a number of cinerary urns and great quantities of cremated remains were discovered in 1853, evidently of the pure Bronze Period. This spot has not been identified with any of the great burial-places mentioned in early Irish records. Three skeletons were found a couple of feet beneath an immense boulder, ‘huddled together in a small space not above 2 feet in length.’ At a considerable depth below these, and beneath four granite blocks, a bed of charcoal was reached, containing broken urns of four different patterns. Many perfect urns were found, some of which are among the finest examples yet discovered in Ireland. The urns were placed in stone cists, and also in the earth without any trace of an enclosure. There was evidence of great fires, while deep pits and beds of charcoal were laid bare, showing the extent to which cremation and the attendant funeral rites had been carried out at this spot. The only weapon found was a single dagger blade of bronze.[60] Carrowmore furnishes an instance of a mixed interment, where the inhumed remains were found over the calcined bones. ‘At the lowest level,’ says Colonel Wood-Martin, ‘of the side-stones of the cist a floor or flagging of calpy limestone slabs was found. It was on this--which overlay the undisturbed “till”--that the body or bodies of the primary interment had been originally cremated, portions of the floor showing marks of fire; and semi-burnt wood was found inlaid, with the layer of calcined bones above. It was plainly evident from the floors and burnt bones extending in “pockets” under the side-stones of the cist, that the latter had been constructed over the funeral pyre, and that the calcined remains were the primary interment, and that they had not been placed within an already completed chamber.’[61] In a small tumulus at Dysart, County Westmeath, Dr. Dillon Kelly discovered, in 1876, two kistvaens containing skeletons in a contracted position. One was of an irregular pentagon shape, the longest diameter being 3 feet 9 inches, and the depth 2 feet 3 inches. In this there were three animal teeth; and each chamber contained a fine urn of baked clay. Cremated remains were found on the covering stones and round the cists. The burning seems to have taken place over the inhumed bodies, whose heads may, from their sitting position, have come into almost immediate contact with the covering stones. The supposition receives additional weight from the baked look of the tops of the skulls, both of which presented such an appearance over the whole of their vertical aspects.[62]