Newgrange - awe inspiring

Internet back on - must have been all the thunderstorm activity in the eastern half of Scotland.

So on our last day in Ireland, the Republic, we went to my one ‘must see of the trip’ - the megalithic tombs of Meath. I would have said Newgrange but I have since learned that Newgrange is but one of many and not even the biggest passage tomb in the area.

First to say, these structures are over 5,000 years older, older than Stonehenge or the Pyramids. There are two tombs that visitors can go to. We were taken to Knowth first, the biggest tomb, with two passage tombs, one from the west and the other from the east. They do not meet in the middle. You cannot enter the passageways but you can walk on the top of the mound. Around the outside of this mound are 130 three-tonne rocks which all told amount to over 50% of the megalithic art in all of Western Europe! This was all done in the Stone Age, before any metal was used, and there were likely not wheels, although rolling logs was thought to be possible.

The three main sites, and many smaller sites are arranged on the bend of the River Boyne.

Looking up to the ceiling at Knowth, 6m away. We were a little misled on the tour that everything is exactly as found. 

Not quite. Everything has been put back exactly as found, after the archeologists dismantled the whole built structure. We have to trust them they did it accurately.

They also dug out a trench around the perimeter to build a retaining wall, to provide a concrete overhang in order to protect the externally facing rock art.

This was impressive.

Then we went to Newgrange about one mile away. It has an amazing quartz entrance facade - but this was largely the archaeologist’s interpretation of finding a lot of quartz at the site. Here though were able to go to into the passage tomb. It was squeezed at some points and no photography was allowed. Fortunately the visitor Centre is full of such images, so the one above is from there exhibit. 

Newgrange is well known as the tomb which brings light into the end of the passage, where there are three recesses, forming a sort of a cross. Human remains were found here, charred bones mostly, but they were also found in the mound. There are just  a handful of individuals buried at Newgrange, but there are over 300 at Knowth. Everyone is waiting in the coming months for the DNA results to look at how closely related the individuals are. There is an assumption that only very exceptional - god like leaders would be buried in such tombs, and so they probably are related.

Why was it so awesome? Along the passage way, about 4-5 feet in height there are occasional images, but in the end with the recesses there is a lot more art and the ceiling is 6m tall! There are stone basins 3-4 feet across. The ceiling and the sides have all been constructed like kids Lego bricks, getting closer and closer together till there is just one big brick, one metre long rock, at the top. The visitor Centre had a lot of great animations, as it seemed to me that many Irish places had these. Maybe it’s just the modern capacity for such vivid, engaging story-telling about the past. Think sci-fi in reverse.

But of course the most awesome thing about it is that it only allows light in for about two weeks around the winter solstice. In other words it is signal that the harshness of winter is ending. Light comes into a ‘roof-box’ above the passage way. Newgrange is built into a hill, so that the roof box entry lines up exactly with the horizon, so the first rays of the sun pass down the roof-box into the end of the passage way (20m?).

Whoever thought of that?

I particularly liked the immersive forest where shadows of creatures flitted in and out, usually soundlessly, for man was a-hunting. There were recreations of Stone Age life, families, trading, crafts, fishing, scraping animal hides. There was a lot of speculation about spiritual beliefs and music, which was better than choosing a single approach and peddling that.

Places alongside rivers are dense, wet and drippy. We saw that in Ireland, and where I am now in Dalkeith, which is built on a plateau between two rivers, the vegetation is thick, dense and drippy. But it has been raining.

Here are some of the beautiful images on the rocks, which were themselves made by scraping a harder rock across the surface very many times.

This is my photo of a complicated drawing, that some people think might be to do with the moon.