THE HUMAN bones which were unearthed recently by a team working on the upgrade of John’s Square, have been examined and reburied.
Work stopped when a digger unearthed a human skull in the square and Aegis Archeology, the consultant firm retained for the job were called in.
Linda Lynch from Glin, an osteoarchaeologist, was contacted to examine the remains.
The team of experts now believe that the bones are those of a young adult, aged between 17 and 25 years.
“Without carbon dating it is not possible to tell how long ago the person was buried, but the bones would certainly be hundreds of years old,” Frank Coyne, director of Aegis, told the Limerick Post.
The archeologists put the date of the bones at hundreds of years because the body was uncovered where it was originally buried and it was buried in a north-south direction rather than the more recent practice of burying bodies in an east-west orientation.
“The best practice is not to excavate remains unless you have to so, what had been uncovered was examined and then covered with a thick layer of geo-textile and sand and work is continuing. Leaving remains in situ is the best practice,” Mr Coyne added.
Limerick was still a fortified city when John Purdon and Edmund Sexton started work on the building of a new square, now known as John’s Square.
The development was designed by Francis Bandana and it was begun in 1751 and was one of Limerick’s first examples of fashionable architecture and civic space.
The €1 million contract will “include an extensive upgrade of the public space by the provision of high quality granite paving, new street lighting and traffic calming measures to provide a nice public space establishing an appropriate setting for the historical buildings surrounding John’s Square as intended by the early designers allowing visitors to Limerick and local residents to enjoy the historic architecture in a setting that reflects their heritage value contributing to the broader city economy and sustainability,” according to a CIty Council spokesperson.
