Provenance
Discovery: Found along with other early medieval finds during the excavation of a crannog in 1933. The crannog (Ballinderry 2) was situated on what had once been an island in Ballinderry Lough. Ballinderry 1 crannog was at the other end of the same lake, in Co. Westmeath (Hencken and Stelfox 1941, 3-5).
Findspot: Ballinahinch (Baile na hInse ), Co. Offaly, Ireland (ITM Coordinates: 621526, 739006)
Current repository: Ireland National Museum of Ireland (inv. no. E6720, E6721)
Last recorded location(s): National Museum of Ireland.
Support
National Monuments Service SMR ID (crannog): OF001-001----
Object type: Die
Material: Bone
Dimensions: H 50 × W 10 mm
Condition: One of two dice, in good condition, discovered during excavation at a crannog site. The other die is made of a sheep’s metacarpal (Hencken and Stelfox 1941, 55).
Inscription
Text field: The four sides of the dice are numbered 3, 4, 5 and 6 using dots (owing to their shape 1 and 2 are omitted). On one of the dice (no. 45), the 5 dots were replaced by the ogham letter ᚃ = V, presumably to represent the Roman numeral (Hencken and Stelfox 1941, 54-55).
Letters:
Date: Eighth century AD (archaeological context)
Edition
Ogham text: ᚃ
References
- Hencken and Stelfox 1941, 54-55