In July 1848, when workers were working on the railway in Navan near the river Boyne, they discovered a quantity of human remains and the skull of a horse. With these were discovered a copper alloy bridle-bit and harness mounts, some links of a chain and a massive boss, iron rings plated with bronze, some small bronze buttons and seven richly gilt articles.
According to a report "The human bodies do not appear to have been placed in any order: and in the surrounding earth was found a great quantity of charcoal, extending from 2 to 10 feet below the surface." Only a small portion of the site appears to have been disturbed and no proper excavation was carried out.
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Sources
Wilde, William, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities of Animal Materials and Bronze in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy(Dublin, 1861), pp. 573-4.
Wilde, William, The Beauties of the Boyne and Blackwater (Dublin, 1850), pp. 134-5.
D. Ó Murchadha, "Odhbha and Navan", Ríocht na Mídhe, 8 (1992-3), pp. 112-23.
Raghnall Ó Floinn, The Archaeology of the Early Viking Age in Ireland in Clarke, H.B., Ní Mhaonaigh, M., Ó Floinn, R. (eds) Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age (Dublin, 1998), pp. 144-5.